Hell and High Water
by Perosha
Summary: AU novel. After Team Magma and Team Aqua lose control of Groudon and Kyogre during "The Scuffle of Legends," the two Pokémon are poised to destroy Hoenn. Desperate for a way to stop them, villains and heroes alike are forced into an uneasy alliance that brings enemies close, and friends even closer. Rating for natural disaster, language, and mature themes; no explicit sex.
1. Chapter 1

_Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope?_  
_Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?_  
_Will he keep begging you for mercy? Will he speak to you with gentle words?_  
_Will he make an agreement with you for you to take him as your slave for life?..._  
_If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again!_  
_Any hope of subduing him is false; the mere sight of him is overpowering.  
_  
– Job 41:1-4, 8-9

* * *

"All of you need to get into the ruins, right away!"

Only the grunts nearest him could even hear the shouted command. Tabitha spat out a mouthful of water and hoisted Maxie higher against his shoulder, blinking away the rain that had already soaked through his uniform, and counted the striped and hooded figures as they scrambled toward the crumbling stone temple, every step a splash through liquid mud. In the distance, the massive wave looked like a wall of iron as it rolled—slowly, unnaturally slowly—towards the shore, down below them at the base of the sloping volcano that constituted Monsu Island.

"Get into the ruins, _now!"_

A pair of Aqua grunts who had paused to gaze at the distant wave turned and fled towards the temple. At Tabitha's side, Maxie hissed through gritted teeth.

"Sir, are you all right?" Tabitha shifted his grip again, keeping Maxie on his feet. "We need to get to safety with the others. Come on."

"No." Maxie tried to support himself, then stifled a gasp, clutching at his side through his overcoat with his free hand. "We have to stop Archie. If this goes on much longer..."

Grimacing, Tabitha looked to the sky. The rain was lessening to a drizzle as Archie and Kyogre moved further offshore, though dark clouds still seethed above their heads, as though the frothing cauldron the sea had become had somehow spilled up into the sky. Flecks of bright white flickered inside the churning storm: lightning, waiting to strike. Even the caldera of the volcano had begun to smoke harder, the thin plume just barely visible against the clouds. Tabitha set his jaw.

"We don't have any way to follow Archie, sir," he said. "The chopper's damaged. There's nothing we can do but get to the ruins."

"If we don't do something—" Maxie began, then hissed again, his lined face tightening with pain. Tabitha supported him more firmly, trying to mind the side of his ribs that seemed to be tender.

"Maxie, let's go—"

Something big swooped overhead, pale against the dark sky, shooting over the wind-tossed treetops and down towards the rocky shore. Tabitha almost ducked instinctively.

"What the hell was that?"

Already the flying thing was hard to make out, a light-colored blur speeding out to sea. It seemed to be heading towards Archie and Kyogre.

"Come on, you guys! Pikachu went this way!"

A few yards away, a group of people rushed past, not even noticing Maxie and Tabitha as they bolted for the trees on the edge of the ruins. It took Tabitha a second to register what he was seeing.

"It's those _kids_ again!" he said in astonishment.

And indeed, the four children his submarine had unexpectedly picked up that morning were running pell-mell through the muck, headed towards the slopes that descended to the shore. In moments they had all but disappeared, melting into the darkness between the trees. Maxie stirred.

"Go...after them..."

"Right." Tabitha hesitated. "Sir—you should stay here with the others. It's too dangerous."

Maxie winced and forced himself to straighten up; Tabitha relaxed his grip, letting him support himself.

"We have to follow them," Maxie said weakly. "The Blue Orb is still inside that boy's Pikachu. If we lose it now..."

Tabitha did not argue. Instead he pulled his hood further over his head to shield himself from the rain and followed Maxie towards the woods.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"Pikachu! _Pikachu!"_

Ash lost the breath to yell as he scrambled down the steep slope, trying not to slip in the treacherous mud. Pikachu had gone this way, he was sure of it, and after a moment he caught a glimpse of light between the trees. He sped up. The world became meaningless sound and fury as he barreled down, down, past trees whose ranks grew ever thinner as the muddy ground gave way to bare, wet rock. Pikachu was soon visible as a ball of light half a dozen yards ahead, and only the sound of footfalls from behind him told Ash that the rest of his friends were keeping pace with his furious scramble down the ridge.

The ground suddenly leveled. Ash staggered, momentum nearly pitching him over, but righted himself and kept running, calling out to Pikachu, who had paused on the edge of an outcropping as though contemplating whether to jump. The Blue Orb's red lines pulsated weirdly across its tiny body.

"_Pikachu!"_

Pikachu leaped.

Ash managed to skid to a halt before reaching the rim of the ledge, and heard Brock, May, and Max stop short behind him, panting. A good thirty feet below, Pikachu landed—safely, it seemed—atop a huge gray submarine that had been thrown up onto the shore by the storm, now lying helpless on the rocks like some bloated steel monster.

"Hey, Pikachu!" Ash called, to no avail. Brock squinted at the sub below, realization dawning as he noticed a familiar symbol on its hull.

"Hey, that's Team Aqua's submarine!" he said. Beside him, May looked frightened.

"Is...something inside of it?"

Ash grit his teeth.

"_Pikachu!" _he called again, but Pikachu paid him no heed. If the distance had not been so great, he would have leaped down after his friend, but even Ash appreciated the danger of a jump from this height. All he could do now was watch.

Archie's madness seemed to have infected the entire sea. Half a mile offshore, the gray water churned as though boiling, whirlpools and waterspouts forming and seething for the blink of an eye before vanishing as quickly as they had appeared. Rain came down in intermittent sheets that twisted in a way no natural storm could mimic. Every once in a while, some trick of the air carried echoes of Archie's laughter to them, faint but distinct, yet the sound was barely human; it might have been the laughter of an evil spirit, some demon of the oceans summoned out of ancient myth to end the living world. Even from this distance, and even through the haze of rain, Archie himself was visible as a glimmer of blue above the water. Evidently the Red Orb had been absorbed into his body, for the harsh light of it shone from within him like a beacon. Behind him, the tidal wave that Kyogre had summoned stood tall and unmoving, awaiting only a madman's signal to lunge forward and drown the island. Lance and Dragonite, too, were distinguishable, though only as a pale blur zigzagging above the sea.

Ten feet away from Ash and his friends, Maxie and Tabitha arrived. Their trajectory down the slope had brought them onto a different ledge than the children, and now Maxie bent double, gasping for breath. Tabitha reached out to support him, but Maxie straightened up, looking grim. The two men gazed down at the submarine, watching Pikachu screech loudly enough to be heard even over the wind and waves, shooting bright tongues of electricity toward the sky as if to challenge the storm itself.

"What's that Pikachu _doing?" _Maxie muttered.

"I don't know, sir..."

Pikachu had now attracted everyone's attention. Out at sea, Kyogre and Archie had stopped sparring with Lance and Dragonite; it seemed like they were both watching the commotion on the beach, and Pikachu continued to scream like a thing possessed as it sent forth bolt after bolt of electricity, the brightness lashing painfully across the watchers' vision. Tabitha shielded his eyes against one particularly strong blast, then tensed, discerning beneath the storm the sound of footfalls behind him. He glanced over his shoulder.

It was Commander Shelly. Her long red hair clung to her back, wet and lank, matted in places by the same mud that now stained her soggy jeans. If she noticed her disheveled condition, she did not care. She did not even spare a glance for Maxie and Tabitha as she stood transfixed, shivering in the rain, her gaze darting between the screeching Pikachu down below and Archie and Kyogre out on the water. She looked horrified.

The sight of Shelly triggered something in Tabitha's brain, a chain realization as swift as the thunderbolts being expelled by Pikachu. In a fraction of a second, he understood everything, remembered what was inside the sub, why the Orb-mad Pikachu would have been drawn to it...

Lightning struck the submarine.

The bolt lasted, perhaps, four seconds, but for the watchers on the ledges, those seconds stretched into an hour of blinding whiteness and the indignant shriek of burning metal. Then something exploded.

A wave of heat passed over them, like a furnace blast, and Ash lunged forward and let out a scream that no one could hear. But already the submarine, or whatever was left of it behind a thick veil of smoke, had ceased to be the center of attention, because the boom of the explosion had not ended. Instead it grew louder and deeper, until it had become a roar emitted not by the wreckage on the beach, but by the island itself, which trembled beneath them.

No one needed to ask what was happening. As one they all turned and gazed at the smoldering crown of the low volcano behind them in the center of the island, and waited, holding their breaths.

With a bellow, the volcano erupted; it deafened them with its anger as it spewed a plume of hot ash into the roiling storm clouds. Forked lightning immediately shot through the ash cloud, as if the storm resented this intruder, and something bright burst from the rim of the volcano and began slithering down its sides: fresh lava. Channels in the rock funneled the lava into twin rivers that smoked and spluttered as they rolled down the island's flanks, far enough on either side of those watching from the ruins and shore to pose no danger, yet too hot and bright to even look at directly. Both flows of lava met the sea within moments of each other, cascading over the lip of the shore cliffs and exploding on contact with the water. The ocean hissed in reply. Great white plumes of steam billowed from the places where the two forces collided.

The wreckage of the submarine radiated light, excruciatingly bright light, as though the metal had been a thin wrapper ripped away to reveal a piece of the sun. The light coalesced into a pillar that moved steadily upwards, throwing the world into blinding relief, and when the beam reached the clouds it spread outwards. The clouds dissolved, breaking apart and swirling like dark vapor before disappearing as completely as though they had never been.

In the space of a deep breath, the entire sky above Monsu Island was magically wiped clean. Now it was a pure, pale, perfect blue—save for on the far side of the island, where ash still hung in the air, drifting away southeastward on some wind too high to feel.

The storm below had died as swiftly as the one above. As the clouds were rent to tatters, the ocean that had seethed slate-gray in the darkness becalmed itself, smoothing under the strong rays of the sun. By the time the clouds disappeared—and it was but the work of a few moments—the sea surrounding the island was docile, save for the wall of water that Kyogre had created, towering behind the great Pokémon like a beast held at bay. In the absence of the wind and rain the unmoving wave looked truly freakish. There could be no doubt that it was the product not of natural forces, but of an ancient and unfathomable will. And now, another will had awoken to challenge it.

Maxie watched Groudon—a real, living, breathing Groudon—extract itself from the wreckage of the half-melted submarine. Its crimson scales shone like armor in the newly bright sun as it heaved itself forward on hind legs that could crush a redwood, its tail alone powerful enough to smash concrete to powder. Gargantuan claws cleaved through the steel piled around it like so much tissue paper, and when it was free it raised its mighty head and gave a bellow that shook the foundations of the island. By some miracle—or perhaps the power of the Blue Orb—Pikachu had survived the explosion of the sub, and from this distance it was nothing more than a crackling ball of light perched atop Groudon's muzzle, its shrill screams inaudible. When Groudon roared a second time, Maxie felt the sheer force of it vibrate inside his ribcage.

Somehow, in that moment, it seemed to Maxie that he had beheld this creature many times before. In some ways, he had—if fantasies counted, and dreams, and those muddled visions somewhere in between that occurred during long nights spent lying awake. But now, staring down at the shore thirty feet below, soaking wet and, if the pain in his side was any indication, bleeding...

Groudon was to an ordinary Pokémon what a mountain was to a stone. The Earth herself had conceived it in the days when she was young, nurturing it in her fiery womb until it came forth from her in spasms of rock and lava, awakening at last into a dark and ancient age of the world beyond the memory of any thing that now lived. Any thing, save the equally mighty creature lying in wait out in the water.

The wave behind Kyogre lunged forward like a charging army, climbing higher every second, desiring to devour the whole of Monsu Island. All the sea before the wave drew back to join with it, leaving bare a great field of wet rock, but no one watching attempted to run. Even if any of them had been capable of moving, there was nowhere to go. The wave would swallow them where they stood.

Groudon drew back its massive head, opened its jaws wide, and then roared at the sea. The sound alone was thunder out of the bowels of hell. From its maw, a beam of energy erupted, shooting across the intervening space and smashing against the tidal wave: a Solarbeam.

It was like a hammer hitting a pane of glass. The wave shattered to pieces, shooting up a hundred feet of foam before melting into a flat plane of swirling blue. Mist sparkled in every hue over the surface of the sea, empty save for the distant Kyogre, Archie still hovering above it in his mini-chopper. Groudon snarled triumphantly. Kyogre bellowed back.

"Sir, what's going on here?"

It took Maxie a moment to reply to Tabitha. When he spoke, his voice rang hollow and distant in his own ears, as though he were hearing the words of some other man speaking very far away.

"Tabitha...Groudon is an amazing Pokémon. We were fools to believe we could actually control that kind of power."

The earth rumbled in affirmation. Behind them, Commander Shelly spoke, evidently to herself.

"But, wait...If Kyogre is capable of the same kind of power, then...Archie is..."

Tabitha glanced back at her. Her gloved hands had clenched at her sides, and she was shaking visibly, though she did not seem to notice.

Below them, Groudon began to move. With another roar it dragged itself forward, slow and powerful as the shifting of the Earth's crust, wading headlong into the water. Kyogre and Archie seemed content to wait for its approach.

On the other ledge, Ash watched Groudon enter the sea with dread, his gaze focused on the ball of light perched atop it.

"_Pikachu!"_

Brock was about to speak when he noticed something else.

"Ash, look—it's Lance!"

Dragonite was swooping towards them out of the clear, bright sky, Lance clinging to its back with his cape whipping behind him, still soaked through. The dragon Pokémon's incredible speed brought them to the ledge in the space of a few moments, and Ash ran to meet them as Dragonite landed heavily, its claws gouging the rock. Lance did not give Ash a chance to speak.

"Ash, you and the others have to get out of here," he said at once. "You've got to get off the island while Groudon's holding off Kyogre—there's not much time. Get on Gyarados and head southeast as fast as you can. If I don't catch up with you in an hour, then tell Gyarados to take you all to Mossdeep Island. It's closest, and Gyarados knows the way."

"What? Lance, I can't just leave Pikachu out there by itself!"

"Ash, we don't have time to argue over this," Lance said. "Groudon could make that volcano erupt again at any moment. It isn't safe here."

"I'm not leaving without Pikachu!" Ash looked over his shoulder. "Brock, May, Max—all of you guys get away on Gyarados. I'm staying here, no matter what."

"But Ash—" Brock began. Lance cut him off.

"Ash, I appreciate your courage, but I can't handle Groudon and Kyogre both at once, much less—"

"You don't need to handle them both! We just need to get Pikachu back!" Ash looked defiant. "I don't care what it takes, I'm gonna help Pikachu—even if I have to battle Kyogre and Groudon by myself!"

"By...yourself?" Max gaped.

"Won't happen." Brock stepped forward, clutching a Pokéball. "'Cause I'll be right here with you."

"Yeah, me too!" May said. "We're a team."

"And I'll help you too, Ash, no matter what blows up!" added Max.

Above and behind them all, the volcano belched more ash, as though answering Max's challenge. The sky on the other side of the island noticeably dimmed in consequence. Lance hesitated, then grimaced.

"All right, but we've got to hurry. Ash, I think you should ride with me on Dragonite, while the rest of you go ahead and hop on Gyarados. Ash and I will approach Groudon and wait for the perfect opportunity to save Pikachu. Brock, May, see if the two of you can distract Archie. Do anything you can to hold him off, got it?"

"What about me?" Max asked. Lance shook his head.

"Sorry, Max, but this is too dangerous. Just stay here."

"_Hey!"_

The shout startled them all. On the other ledge, a few yards away, Shelly was waving an arm to get their attention. Behind her stood Maxie and Tabitha, though neither of them looked like they knew what she was doing.

"What do _they _want?" Brock wondered. Lance spared a glance over his shoulder at the three of them, then nudged Dragonite with a heel; the Pokémon sprang towards the other ledge, landing with a thud and forcing Shelly to back away a few steps.

"You three!" Lance barked. "Go up to the ruins and get your people down here. They won't be safe if the volcano blows again. Hurry!"

Tabitha and Maxie looked taken aback, but Shelly did not hesitate to bark right back at Lance.

"Are you going to try and stop Archie?"

"Yes, and y—"

"I'm coming with you."

"Do you have any Pokémon?"

"No, but—"

"Then stay here!"

Lance turned away. It was only a yank on his cape that prevented Dragonite from taking off again.

"Take me with you," Shelly demanded. "If you're going to try and get Archie, then I'm going too."

Without waiting for confirmation, Shelly sprang onto Dragonite's back, balancing on the base of its thick tail and clutching beneath its wings for support. Dragonite yelped in surprise, and Lance twisted around to stare incredulously at the passenger he'd acquired.

"I'm coming," Shelly repeated firmly. Lance sized her up.

"Do you really think you can stop Archie?"

"I don't know. But I have to try."

Out at sea, Groudon bellowed again. The noise seemed to make Lance's decision for him.

"All right, fine. But we've got to hurry. Dragonite—"

The great dragon did not even have to fly; a single strong leap was all it took to propel it back to the ledge where Ash and his friends stood waiting.

"Lance, what's going on?" Ash asked. "What's _she _doing?"

"New plan!" Lance announced; he had to raise his voice to be heard over the noise now coming from both Groudon and Kyogre. "Shelly, you come with me on Dragonite, and we'll go after Archie. Ash, go with your friends on Gyarados and see if you can get Pikachu away from Groudon while Shelly and I have Kyogre distracted. Groudon should be easier to approach, since it's out of its element in the water."

Dragonite took to the air, hovering above the ledge. Lance nodded down at Ash, Brock, and May, then tossed them his Pokéball containing Gyarados; Brock caught it.

"Be careful, and good luck!"

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Groudon halted. Already it had waded so deep into the ocean that water reached halfway up its scaly sides. Its rumbles underscored the screeches of Pikachu riding on its head, challenging Kyogre, and in response Kyogre let off a Hydro Pump—a colossal jet of pressurized water with all the size and force of a train. But a bolt of lightning from Pikachu clove it in twain before it could hit its mark, and Groudon slammed a claw across the surface of the sea, rending a fissure whose shockwave smashed full-force into Kyogre. The great beast wailed and dove. Where it disappeared, the sea began to churn once more.

Squinting against the rushing wind and flashes of electricity, only one thing drew Shelly's attention: the mini-chopper hovering near Kyogre, manned by Archie. He was no longer laughing. Another lightning bolt from Pikachu blasted the sea next to Kyogre, creating a burst of light that blinded Shelly, and when her vision returned Dragonite was already within a stone's throw of the chopper, its leathery wings beating the air on either side of her as it hovered. Shelly clung tighter to it.

Archie did not seem to notice them. He bellowed some command at Kyogre that went unheard beneath the noise, and Lance heeled Dragonite, who shot a Twister attack close enough to the chopper to finally attract Archie's attention. When he whirled to face them, Shelly saw blue light blazing through his eyeballs and skin, pulsating in a pattern that was visible even through the wet suit that clung to his muscular frame. He looked utterly mad.

"You again!" he roared at Lance. "Back for more already?"

"Archie, stop it!" Lance hollered. "You'll destroy yourself and everything else!"

"You want me? Then come and get me!"

"Archie!" Shelly cried. "Archie, please, listen to me! You have to stop this! _Please!"_

She might as well have been begging Kyogre, for all the good it did. Archie laughed and took the chopper down closer to the water while Kyogre breached, creating a massive whirlpool before diving again.

"Dragonite," Lance said, "aim another Twister—"

But the rest of Lance's command was lost beneath a roar from Groudon that seemed to tear the very air in half. Another Solarbeam pierced the whirlpool like a javelin, sending plumes of spray and steam shooting into the air. Dragonite was high enough already to dodge these, but Shelly almost lost her grip on it as it did. Archie, much closer to the surface, was not so lucky. A column of water smashed against the side of the chopper.

The chopper lurched, shuddering, then pitched onto its side and plummeted, its mangled left fan dead. Archie had no chance to cling on. The first jolt had unbalanced him, and with a shriek of rage and surprise he was hurled toward the sea below, scrabbling futilely in midair. Dragonite dove, but it was a fraction of a second too late. Lance and Shelly were still twenty feet above the waves when Archie hit them, the water breaking his fall no more gently than a brick wall would have done. The chopper crashed beside him.

For a moment, the Red Orb's radiance glittered eerily just beneath the surface of the water, like a bright light shining through dirty glass. Then another wave rolled over the spot where Archie had fallen, and the light was gone.

Shelly dove, but her fall lasted less than a second. Dragonite caught her around the waist as soon as she had leaped from its back, and the last of the chopper disappeared beneath the water even as she struggled to regain her breath.

"Don't be an idiot!" came Lance's yell. "You can't go after him!"

"Archie! _Archie!"_

Dragonite shot upward so quickly that its tightened grip squeezed the air from Shelly's lungs. Kyogre had tossed a towering wave in their direction with no more effort than it would have taken for a human to lazily swat at a fly, and foam from the crest of it licked the soles of Shelly's boots as it passed beneath them. Shelly's gaze darted frantically, searching the sea for a glimpse of light, or the hint of a figure bobbing amidst the rolling waves...

"_Archie!"_

She struggled, making the tips of Dragonite's claws press into her skin. Below, Groudon spewed a barrage of mud at Kyogre, blanketing the sea in a layer of sediment. Kyogre dove, disappearing beneath the muck.

"Climb back up here!" Lance yelled down at Shelly. "We have to help the others against Groudon!"

"But Archie—he'll drown!"

"You can't help him now! Come on!"

For a moment, Shelly wrestled with the urge to wrench herself from Dragonite's grasp and plunge into the swirling sea. Then Dragonite lifted her up, and she found herself scrambling onto its back once more, behind Lance.

"_Dragonite, go!"_

As they sped away, Shelly twisted to watch the spot where Archie had vanished recede behind them—but already she could not tell where it had been.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"Pikachu!_ Pikachu!..._LET ME GO!"

Brock grit his teeth and kept his grip, though Ash was struggling so much that they both nearly slipped off of Gyarados. Groudon and Pikachu had vanished a moment ago with a combined howl, as if some mighty current had risen from the depths to yank them under, and it was only Brock's instinctive lunge that kept Ash from hurling himself after them. Now Gyarados's powerful body cut a path through the uneasy sea as it circled around the spot where Groudon had been, unable to follow with passengers on its back.

"Brock, let go of me! I have to go get Pikachu!"

"Ash, you can't—"

A sudden _boom _issued from somewhere below, and the ocean heaved, as though a bomb had exploded underwater. Gyarados braced itself against the shockwave, but its passengers nearly lost their balance nonetheless, and in that moment of confusion Ash managed to break free of Brock's grip and dive off of Gyarados. Brock and May cried out in unison, but there was no sign of him but his hat, floating on the surface.

"Mudkip, Lotad!" Brock yelled. Two small figures popped into view in the water beside Gyarados. "Go get Ash! He dove in!"

The two Pokémon disappeared. Another _boom _echoed from below, but this one seemed less powerful, as though whatever had caused it was no longer right below them. May signaled to Beautifly overhead, and it swooped down and plucked Ash's hat from the water, dropping it in her lap before resting on her head. Brock simply scanned the surface, holding his breath.

"Brock! May!"

It was Lance, hovering on Dragonite. Behind him, Shelly looked pale.

"Brock! What just happened?" Lance called. "Where's Ash?"

"He dove in!" Brock yelled back. "And I think Kyogre pulled Groudon and Pikachu underwater!"

Lance swore loudly. Brock shielded his eyes as he gazed up at the hovering Dragonite.

"What about you guys? Where's Archie?"

Suddenly, something broke the surface of the water: Ash, coughing and spluttering, Mudkip and Lotad clamped tight to the shoulders of his jacket. Dragonite scooped him up. Ash gasped and coughed up a little water, struggling feebly in Dragonite's grip, and shivered in the draft from its beating wings.

"Ash, are you all right?" Lance called at him. Ash looked up.

"Pikachu's down there somewhere, Lance! I can't leave it!"

For the third time, a palpable shockwave rippled through the water, but it was much weaker than before, and without any noise to accompany it. Whatever was happening was further away—though in what direction under the faceless waves, none of them could tell.

Dragonite made a few wide loops, skimming the surface, but there was nothing to be seen. At last it swooped back towards Gyarados and set Ash gently onto its back, between Brock and May; Mudkip and Lotad let go of him at last. Lance surveyed the blue ocean.

"I think Kyogre and Groudon have moved away from here," he announced. "It looks like things are starting to calm down."

This seemed to be true. The endless expanse of choppy waves, though not serene, could not be compared with the violence of even a few minutes ago, and there was no sign in any direction of either Kyogre or Groudon. Without the cacophony of their battle, the world suddenly seemed tranquil—unnervingly so. Only the pillar of smoke rising from Monsu Island remained as evidence of everything that had just happened.

"Okay, everybody listen up!"

Lance's voice seemed to snap them all out of a dream. He leaned forward to better call down to those riding Gyarados.

"All of you head back to the island!" he commanded. Over his shoulder, he added, "You too, ma'am. Hop on Gyarados."

"Lance!" Ash protested. "I'm not leaving Pikachu!"

"There's nothing else you can do, Ash," Lance replied. "Dragonite and I will stay out here and search for Pikachu and Archie for as long as we can, but the rest of you need to head back. We have to evacuate Monsu Island as soon as possible." His tone permitted no argument. "Send Gyarados back out to help once it's dropped you off."

As Shelly slid off of Dragonite's back and landed on Gyarados, Ash unclipped a couple of the Pokéballs from his belt and opened them. One of the Pokémon inside materialized into the water beside them; the other, into the air.

"Corphish, Swellow—help Lance and Dragonite look for Pikachu, okay?" he ordered. "It's out here in the ocean somewhere. I'll come back and help too, as soon as I can."

"You two, Mudkip and Lotad," Brock said. "Help Corphish look underwater."

"Beautifly—" May reached up and touched its antennae gently, "go with Swellow, okay? Help find Pikachu."

The Pokémon dispersed. Gyarados turned away towards Monsu Island, but none of its passengers gazed toward their destination; all four of them instead sat facing backwards, holding on to Gyarados's dorsal fins and watching the search party fan out over the empty ocean. For a minute, no one spoke. The only sounds were the wind and the movement of the water as Gyarados's long scarlet body twisted back and forth, leaving a wake like a sparkling ribbon.

"Ash? You lost your hat..."

"Huh? Oh, thanks, May." He set the soaking wet cap back atop his equally wet hair. "I shouldn't be leaving Pikachu like this..."

"We're not leaving it—we're going to regroup," Brock said firmly. "We need to figure out what to do next."

"But what if Groudon and Pikachu head somewhere else to get away from Kyogre? We're stuck here on this island."

Brock looked like he wanted to say something, but after a moment, simply turned to face Monsu Island. May did the same. Ash, however, continued to gaze backward at the figures of Dragonite and the other flying Pokémon, now variously-sized dots skimming every which way over the sea. He looked as though he were extending every ounce of his will to them to ensure the success of their search.

Shelly watched them, too, but there was none of Ash's strain in her face. Something like numbness had begun to steal over her, blessedly draining away the adrenaline, and she pushed a lock of wet hair out of her eyes as she watched the figures recede. A primal fear in her gut half-expected for either Kyogre or Groudon to explode from the surface of the water, screaming its victory over the great and ancient enemy, but the sea was calm. Still, she was not naïve enough to suppose the ancient Pokémon's feud ended. Their field of battle was not Monsu Island. It was all of Hoenn—all of the world. And Archie...

Her stomach lurched. Shelly could not decide which was worse: not knowing whether they would find him, or no longer knowing whether he was worth finding.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"They're coming back," Tabitha announced.

Maxie had noticed this too. Gritting his teeth, he staggered back to his feet; his side had begun to bother him again, and now when he tried to breathe deeply a dart of pain pierced his lower ribs. Tabitha had thrown back his hood and was shielding his eyes as he followed the progress of the red Gyarados as it headed back towards shore, making a straight line for the wreckage of Team Aqua's submarine.

"I can't tell if they've got that Pikachu or not," Tabitha said, "but it looks like Archie isn't with them."

There was a long silence as they both watched Gyarados draw nearer. At last, Tabitha shook his head and ran a gloved hand through his dark hair, already beginning to dry in the sun.

"Maxie, sir?"

"Hm?"

"What's going to happen now?"

Maxie gave no answer. For the first time in a long time, he did not have one.


	2. Chapter 2

Shelly shook her hair out of her eyes and pushed a strand of it behind her ear as she hiked up the broad path back to the ruins. Every twenty feet, a pillar of stone rose up on either side of her like a sentinel, the pitted rock dark and wet on one side but nearly dry on the side facing the sun. Again her wet hair fell across her face, and again she pushed it back. After a moment, she paused, pulled off her bandana, and used it to loosely tie her hair. Then she kept walking.

The ground leveled off when she reached the ruins, and Shelly turned and looked back over the ocean. It was blue and calm and utterly empty, beautiful under the afternoon sun as if in mockery of the storm-tossed nightmare it had been not thirty minutes before. Only a speck in the distance showed her where Lance and Dragonite were still combing the water's surface. Shelly watched them, then turned back to the temple.

To her surprise, a group of stripe-shirted grunts was already running out to her, and she hurried forward; they met beside one of the stone columns.

"Commander Shelly!"

The young woman in the lead caught her breath, then swallowed.

"Commander Shelly, what's going on? What happened out there? Magma's field commander didn't tell us anything..." Her eyes widened. "What happened to your side?"

Shelly blinked and looked down. Only then did she notice the row of red lines on her skin where Dragonite's claws had gripped her sides; they did not hurt much, but looked ugly.

"It's nothing, Brooke," she said. "You all need to get down to the water, it isn't safe here. Get everyone out of the ruins."

"But, commander—"

"Brooke, all of you—do as I say. It's safer on the shore right now, away from the volcano." She looked resolute. "I'll join you all in a little while. Wait for me near what's left of the sub."

"What's left—?" Brooke echoed, but Shelly had already broken away from them, heading towards the Team Magma chopper that lay at an angle in the mud on the other side of the ruins. Brooke made as if to follow, but another grunt held her back by the shoulder, shaking his head.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Tabitha switched the receiver off with one hand, still clutching at the paneling in the roof with the other to keep his balance inside the slanted cabin. He grit his teeth as he scrambled back up the tilted floor, pausing on the threshold of the open door to gauge the distance before jumping, landing in a crouch ten feet below. When he straightened, it was to find Commander Shelly standing in the shade of the chopper's rotofan. Behind her, both Magma and Aqua grunts were moving down to the beach in small groups.

"Commander Tabitha."

He acknowledged her with a nod. Then, realizing that she wanted something, he frowned.

"Do you have something to say, Commander Shelly?"

"Yes. I'd like to use your transmitter." She indicated the cabin with a jerk of her head.

"Is there a reason I should let you?"

"I need to contact the rest of my team and tell them what's happened," Shelly said frankly. "I can't use our comm equipment because our sub is destroyed."

Tabitha hesitated, considering this.

"All right—fine. But don't try and pull anything."

Shelly made an odd noise, like a strangled laugh.

"I don't have anything to pull, commander. I just want to get my team off this island alive."

With that, she sprang onto the downed chopper's nose, which was sticking into the ground beside her, and picked her way up it toward the open cabin door. Tabitha watched her go, his instincts protesting against the sight, but the plume of ash coiling lazily into the blue sky behind the chopper reminded him of why, for the moment, this was permissible. When Shelly swung from the chopper's hood down into the cabin, Tabitha turned and walked away.

Shelly's eyes took a minute to adjust to the darkness inside the chopper. She shifted in the doorway, letting more sunlight in around her, and after a while she could distinguish the outline of the main control panel down to her left. Carefully, she maneuvered across the tilted cabin, keeping a firm grip on the wall so as not to slide down the steel floor and hit the row of panels head-on. When she reached the controls, she stood up fully and searched them by feel in the half-darkness.

There. That had to be it. Shelly flipped a couple of switches, and the little screen beside them sputtered to life, the control pad beneath it glowing faintly. She peeled off her wet gloves and stuffed them into her back pocket, then tapped in the channel and passcode sequence. The keypad threw squares of red light over her face as she waited.

The channel opened. Shelly held a thumb to the transmission and prayed someone would answer.

"Come in, Stream B, this is Stream A. Can you hear me?"

Though she counted off the standard interval in her head before trying again, the wait seemed much longer.

"Stream B, this is Stream A. I am calling from an unverified transmitter. Please respond immediately."

Again she began to count, but had only waited a few seconds when the screen lit up. Shelly flipped the receiver on, and a familiar voice resonated through the dark cabin.

"—B responding, repeat, Stream B responding. Shelly, is that you?"

It was Matt. Shelly's stomach tightened at the excitement in his voice, not only audible but displayed as a spike on her screen's glowing waveform of the transmission.

"What took you so long? You guys were supposed to check in when you got to Monsu Island!" The connection crackled, making the waveform shudder. "I'm guessing you got Kyogre out of Team Magma's ship, huh? So what's going on now?"

Shelly did not know how to answer this last question. After a moment, she gave the only reply that seemed honest.

"Matt—everything is fucked."

"What?" The waveform spiked. "What are you talking about, Shelly? Did Team Magma pull something on you guys?"

"No, they didn't."

"So then what's fucked? Shit, Shelly, you sound scared."

"Groudon is gone, Matt."

"What?"

"It escaped. The sub's destroyed. The Kyogre that Team Magma had is gone, too. And Archie...He..."

She did not finish. It took Matt a long moment to break the silence.

"Fucking hell, Shelly, you're freakin' me out over here. What's going on? What happened to Archie?"

Shelly put a hand to the side of her face and closed her eyes, then let her hand fall and began, as best as she could, to explain.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The wreckage of the Team Aqua submarine continued to smolder as the shore around it gradually filled with people. Ash and his friends sat together on a rock, shivering in the wind, watching Lance and Dragonite's distant search. The four of them had removed their shoes, letting them dry in the sun, and many other people had done the same. In fact, few of the Team Aqua or Magma members wore their full uniforms now. Boots, gloves, bandanas, hoods—all had been shed and left to dry, strewn about on the rocks like colorful scraps of paper.

A handful of Aqua grunts had initially poked around their sub, seeing if anything from within could be salvaged, but it was quickly apparent that the smoking pile of scrap was too dangerous to investigate, and so they simply congregated in its massive shadow. Team Magma was less united. Its members wandered up and down the shore in small groups; some gazed out over the shimmering sea, some watched the volcano behind and above them, and a few sat looking up the beach to where Maxie and Tabitha had separated themselves and were conversing with Commander Shelly. At least, the two commanders conversed. Maxie had spread his coat out to dry on a large rock and was sitting beside it, the dark shirt he wore beneath clinging to his thin frame in places where it was still damp. He seemed to be only half-listening to Tabitha and Shelly's discussion.

"Commander Tabitha, please." Shelly's tone was not aggressive, but her scarlet eyes blazed. "I don't enjoy being in this position, but I'm begging you."

"We can't do it," said Tabitha shortly. "It's going to be a stretch fitting everyone into the sub as it is. There's not room for you people too."

"You do realize, Commander Tabitha, that my team has no way off of this island right now? Even if a sub left base for us right away, it would take at least six hours to get here."

The two of them glanced up at the volcano, which was still sending up a thin but steady stream of ash.

"Commander Shelly, I hate to be blunt, but this mess is your own damn fault. If you don't like it, you can thank Leisure Suit Loony—if there's anything left of him by now."

"Don't punish them," Shelly said fiercely; Tabitha looked taken aback. "I'll stay behind, if you want revenge that badly, but don't punish my whole team for what Archie did. It isn't their fault. They never wanted this to happen, and neither did I."

"That doesn't change the fact that—Sir?"

Maxie had stood up. He grit his teeth, touching his side, then looked between Shelly and Tabitha with a worn expression.

"Commander Shelly...your team may come with us when Courtney arrives," he said. "I expect it will be a tight fit, but there seems to be no other option."

"But sir—"

"Tabitha, please." Another wince. "We must be civil."

"But she's the reason the base was destroyed!"

"No. Archie and Kyogre are the reason."

"I helped," Shelly admitted. Maxie frowned at her.

"Be that as it may...I will not leave you all to the mercy of the elements. I am not Archie."

With this pronouncement, he picked up his now mostly dry overcoat and donned it once more. Shelly thanked him, but something else took everyone's attention—not only the three of them, but all of the grunts scattered across the beach. Those who were sitting stood to get a better view.

Lance and Dragonite had returned from offshore. The great dragon dodged the smoke from the wreckage of the Team Aqua submarine before alighting next to Ash and his friends, who stood up as one. Tabitha, Shelly, and Maxie watched from a distance as a conversation took place, Lance not even bothering to dismount from Dragonite. Whatever was being said seemed to upset Ash, and an argument developed; though nothing could be heard, body language was telling enough. After a minute, Dragonite took off again, and the children continued to quarrel amongst themselves. Dragonite was headed towards them.

"What does he want?" Tabitha muttered, as Dragonite landed nearby, its wingbeats scattering sand. Atop it, Lance leaned forward.

"No luck!" he called down. "It looks like Kyogre and Groudon are far away from here already. There's no sign of Pikachu or Archie, either." He locked eyes with Shelly for a moment. "How are all of you getting off of this island?"

"We have a sub on the way," Tabitha answered. "What's it to you?"

"How soon will it be here?"

"Tell me why you want to know." Tabitha looked him over, adding, "Who do you think you are, anyway?"

"Evidently,"said Lance, "I'm the only person here who has any idea of how serious this situation is. I need to get to Mossdeep Island, so if you've got a submarine waiting out there, I'm going to get a lift. Besides, those kids over there need a ride too. Or were you just going to leave them stranded here by themselves?"

"Those kids aren't our problem."

"Excuse me? Yes, they are. They were on your ship, so they're your problem right now. And frankly, you're all lucky that Ash's Pikachu bonded with the Blue Orb and gave Groudon a hand; otherwise this whole island would be underwater by now, and you with it. When is your sub getting here?"

"Soon," said Maxie. "Within a quarter of an hour, I expect."

"All right, good. Round everybody up and have them ready to board as soon as it arrives. We need to get to Mossdeep as fast as possible—before nightfall, if we can."

Before anyone could argue, Dragonite took off again, the wind from its departure whipping their clothes.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"You can't make me go."

May and Brock exchanged looks. Ash had backed away from the two of them and now stood with his gloved fists clenched.

"I don't care what Lance says. Pikachu's out there in the ocean somewhere and I'm not gonna abandon it."

"Ash, we don't have a choice," Brock said. "How else are we supposed to get off of this island? We're lucky Lance is around; I don't think Team Magma would even let us on their submarine otherwise."

He glanced over Ash's shoulder to where the maroon sub was bobbing offshore, Dragonite hovering over it. He could just make out a handful of Team Magma members scrambling off of Dragonite's back and onto the deck of the sub, vanishing down the open hatch; meanwhile, Gyarados was snaking through the rippling water, bearing half a dozen Team Aqua grunts to the same destination. There were only a few people left on the beach now. Brock looked to Ash again.

"Come on, Ash. You have to be reasonable about this."

"How can I be reasonable when my best friend is missing?"

"Ash..." May pleaded. "I want to find Pikachu, too, but don't you see? There's nothing else we can do right now. Our Pokémon looked and looked, but Pikachu is...gone."

"Pikachu is out there," Ash countered. "And I'll never leave it behind. Never."

A silence fell. Beneath them all, the earth rumbled gently, making the volcano cough. Brock rubbed the back of his neck.

"Ash...If I thought there was any way we could help Pikachu by staying here, then I would say so. But I don't. If Pikachu is still okay, then it's gotta be with Groudon, and we know Groudon's not on this island anymore. The best thing right now is to go with Lance and start coming up with a plan to get Pikachu back." He hesitated. "Does that make sense?"

Ash's gaze dropped to the rock beneath his feet, and his fists clenched harder, though he said nothing. Then he turned and gazed out over the ocean, watching another round of evacuees clamber into Team Magma's submarine off Gyarados. Dragonite flew back towards shore so low over the water that a wake rippled behind it.

"You guys?"

"Yeah, Ash?"

"I'm gonna find Pikachu." He touched the brim of his cap. "I swear it on my honor as a trainer. But if staying here isn't the best way..."

He faced them, his expression uncharacteristically muted.

"I don't want all of you guys to get hurt, staying on the island with me. And...If _I _get hurt, then I won't be able to look for Pikachu, or help it when I do find it."

"So...does that mean you'll go on the sub?" Brock asked.

Ash simply nodded.

"Well...We'd better get going, then." Brock adjusted the strap of his backpack and looked over to where Dragonite was picking up another load of passengers. "We don't want to be the last ones on board."

He nodded to them, then set off down the beach. May and Max followed, but Ash remained standing as though rooted to the spot, looking back and forth between his friends a few paces away and the vast plane of the ocean stretching into the distance, blending with the sky at the level of the horizon. Then, with an enormous effort, he turned and followed the others.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The last person to disappear into the forward hatch was Lance, clutching the edge of his cape in one hand to keep it out of his way as he descended the ladder, leaving Tabitha and Courtney alone on deck. Tabitha watched Lance go, but Courtney's attention had long since been drawn to the volcano, and she held on to the railing with one hand, watching another rivulet of lava come streaming down the island's side and hiss on contact with the sea. A spout of white smoke rose up where the two met, like a distress flare.

"I gotta say, Tab," Courtney said abruptly, "this is really not how I expected today to turn out. At all."

Tabitha had been about to climb down the hatch, but now stopped himself, sitting perched on the rim.

"I think we all feel that way."

Courtney looked down at him. "Do you realize we have half of Team Aqua in this sub right now? Team Aqua. In our sub. On purpose."

"I don't like it either, Courtney, but we have to deal with it for now. Come on." Tabitha slid himself down onto the ladder. "Let's hurry up and get out of here."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The mess deck resembled a subway car at rush hour. Everyone had gathered there for a lack of anywhere else to be, and there were now grunts sitting not only at the tables and benches, but also atop of, beneath, and around them, jammed against one another in a tangle of knees and elbows. Still, the distinction between Magma and Aqua was sharp. The twenty or so members of Team Aqua had huddled together in the far corner by the galley, forming an island of blue in the otherwise gray and red room. Outnumbered two to one, the Aquas remained silent, though visibly tense. Among them stood Commander Shelly, her back to the wall, watching the murmuring crowd with her arms folded across her bare midriff; her expression said clearly she had no patience for commentary from the Magmas. More than one Magma grunt nearby had found a jibe stuck in their throat after even briefly meeting her gaze, and although a remark or challenge would come across the room once in a while, Shelly did not so much as blink, nor did she permit her teammates to respond to this bait.

On the other side of the room, Ash and his friends had eked out enough space inside the doorway to sit in a tight cluster on the floor. Brock had found some rice balls in the bottom of his backpack that had somehow survived the day, and now the four of them ate mechanically, all but Ash talking in low voices that mingled with the other conversations bouncing around the metal room. Ash seemed distracted, and after a while May, Brock, and Max gave up on trying to engage him. The Magma grunts nearby looked over at them curiously from time to time.

Brock shifted against the wall as the sub lurched and wiped sweat from his forehead—the room had grown warm quickly.

"I don't know how long it'll take," he was saying. "I haven't checked a map since the ferry this morning, and I don't know where Monsu Island is in relation to anything else. Max, does the PokéNav still work?"

"Yeah," said Max glumly, "but the GPS doesn't. I dunno if it's 'cuz we're underwater or what."

"So we don't know when we'll get to Mossdeep..."

May swallowed a bite of rice.

"Brock, what do you think's going to happen with Kyogre and Groudon? Do you think they'll keep fighting, or..."

Brock did not answer. Instead he sat up straighter, listening to the sound of footsteps in the corridor over his shoulder.

"Someone's coming," he announced, and leaned sideways to peer over his own shoulder into the corridor. "It's Lance and that guy from Team Magma."

No sooner had he said this than Lance appeared in the entryway, halting abruptly so as not to step on May and Max. Over his shoulder stood Tabitha, looking stern; the both of them seemed very tall from the floor.

"Lance! Can I talk to you?"

Lance started at the voice from below.

"No, Ash, not right now." He looked across the mess. "Commander Shelly!"

Even over the noise, his summons was clearly audible, and everyone ceased their conversations, twisting around to stare at the strange, caped man in the doorway. Across the room, Shelly unfolded her arms and straightened from where she had been leaning against the wall.

"What is it?" she called back.

"I need to speak with you!" Lance paused, then added, almost apologetically, "If you don't mind!"

A wave of curiosity rippled through the room. Everybody waited to see what Shelly would do, and Shelly, aware of the attention, took a long moment to survey the way before saying something to one of the grunts beside her and starting forward. She could not stride, given the lack of room, but she kept her shoulders squared and her gaze level as she picked her way dexterously through the seated crowd. A Magma grunt who tried to trip her yelped when she stepped firmly on his ankle.

When Shelly reached Lance—or as close as she could get without treading on Ash, which was about five feet away—she halted.

"What do you want?"

"I need to speak with you," Lance said. "You and Maxie both. The wardroom is up ahead; Maxie's already there. Follow me."

He squeezed past Tabitha and headed up the corridor the way he had come. After a glance back at her teammates, Shelly stepped over Ash and followed. Tabitha let her pass, but it seemed to be with difficulty, and his face was clouded with suspicion as he watched the two of them leave.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The wardroom was spacious: a full seven feet across on each side. One wall of it was taken up by instruments displaying the sub's position, and the only other furniture was a tiny, polished metal table and chair, directly beneath the strip of fluorescent paneling that illuminated the room. The effect was something akin to an interrogation chamber, although it only had one occupant: Maxie, sitting at the table, lost in thought.

The door opened. Maxie straightened as Lance and Shelly entered, Lance shutting the door with a bang that rang painfully in the small space. He ran a hand through his spiky hair, surveying his audience.

"Well, congratulations, you two," he said at last.

This met with no reply. Shelly looked tense, Maxie exhausted; his pale, lined face appeared gray in the harsh light.

"I don't understand what you mean," he said. Lance folded his arms.

"What do I mean? You both got what you've worked so hard for. Team Aqua and Team Magma..."

"This isn't what we wanted," Shelly countered. Maxie looked askance at her.

"I agree. This is not the vision that Team Magma has been striving for."

"You're a fool if you thought it could be any other way," Lance said. "You saw what the Orbs did to Kyogre and Groudon—and what they do to others. Your 'vision' was never real."

"You seem to know a great deal about the Orbs," said Maxie. He added bitterly, "More than I ever did, it seems."

"Lance? Sir."

Both Lance and Maxie looked to Shelly, but Shelly was focused on Lance.

"The Red Orb...What do you think's happened to Archie?"

"To be honest, ma'am, the Red Orb doesn't factor into it. He has to have drowned by now. If I were you, I would consider myself the leader of Team Aqua."

Shelly looked to the steel floor.

"What do you want with us?" asked Maxie. "I'm assuming you've summoned us for a reason."

"I want your help."

This made Shelly look up again. Maxie blinked.

"What?"

"Your help. The both of you." Lance did not look like he relished the idea. "I was sent here to stop both of your organizations from awakening those super-ancient Pokémon, and I've failed. Kyogre and Groudon are on the move, and if what we saw earlier is anything to go by, the consequences won't be pretty. I don't know what you all thought you could achieve by capturing those Pokémon, but from what I've seen today, I believe—at least, I want to believe—that at the very least, neither of you intended for them both to run rampant. Or am I wrong?"

"We never meant for this to happen," Shelly said. "It wasn't supposed to be like this at all."

_"Supposed to _doesn't matter," Lance said shortly. "Look, I'm giving you both a choice: you can cooperate with me, or you can go straight to Officer Jenny as soon as we land at Mossdeep. I can't round up both of your gangs by myself, but Dragonite and I can haul the two of you down to prison no problem, and that's better than nothing."

Shelly bristled. "Are you threatening us?"

"It's only a threat if you choose not to cooperate," was the response. "If you'll pardon my language, Commander Shelly, I personally don't give the wrong end of a Rattata about either of you. I'm not a cop. My job is to protect vulnerable Pokémon from people, and sometimes the other way around; that means that for me, whether the two of you get what you deserve from the law takes a backseat to figuring out what Groudon and Kyogre will do next, and stopping them from causing a disaster, if I can. So I need to know everything you know about those two Pokémon. I have my own sources, but at this point I'm going to need all the help I can get. The fact is that there's probably no one who has more information about Groudon and Kyogre than both of your organizations."

Lance waited, but neither Maxie nor Shelly seemed to have a response forthcoming.

"Listen to me, you two," he said firmly. "We've got to do something before the situation gets completely out of control. If we're lucky, Groudon and Kyogre will settle down of their own accord, but I wouldn't hold out much hope for that. There's a reason those two Orbs were sealed away."

"But what can we do?" Maxie asked. "That is to say, against that kind of power..."

"I don't know," Lance admitted, "but I'm going to find out. And you two need to decide whether you're willing to help me or not."

He tossed his cape with an air of finality, then turned and wrenched open the door, speaking his parting words over his shoulder.

"You've got until Mossdeep. I suggest you talk everything over with your people before we get there."

With that, he departed, his cape whipping around the edge of the door and rippling around him as he hurried down the narrow hall beyond. The cramped wardroom suddenly felt empty. Maxie stared at the spot where Lance had been, then shook his head as if to clear it.

"Commander Shelly?"

She started slightly, then looked over at him, frowning.

"Yes?"

"When you leave, would you please send Tabitha and Courtney here to see me?"

Shelly hesitated, then nodded and left, leaving the door open behind her. Maxie watched her go. When her footsteps were an echo, he set his elbows on the tiny table and closed his eyes, resting his forehead against his fist.


	3. Chapter 3

The atmosphere in the mess did not improve when Shelly left with Lance. If anything, the tension spiked higher, becoming almost tangible; the Aqua grunts looked as though they expected the sea of red around them to pounce at any moment. Traded remarks grew increasingly heated, and it all might have come to blows had a distraction not been provided in the form of a trio of people—or rather, two people and a Meowth—who fell out of the pantry in the back of the room when an Aqua grunt who had been sitting in front of the door shifted position.

The young man and woman were so bedraggled that it was difficult to tell that their clothes had once been white. Upon disentangling themselves from one another, they loudly recited some sort of motto that produced blank stares from their side of the room, and a groan of recognition from Ash and his friends at the other end. Eventually an Aqua grunt identified them as "those clowns from the Weather Institute," and after some squabbling, the trio was compelled to take seats in the furthermost corner of the room, bickering in low voices. When Shelly returned, she spared them no attention.

"Commander Shelly, what's going on?" a grunt asked, as soon as she had arrived. "Where are we headed now?"

"Mossdeep Island." Shelly surveyed her teammates, who looked ill at ease. "After that, I don't know yet. But we should get back to base as soon as we can."

"Fuck that."

One of the grunts against the wall sat forward and rested one arm across the bent knee of his torn, muddy jeans.

"Fuck that, man," he said again. "I'm done with this. The boss tried to fuckin' kill us today. We're lucky to even be sitting here. Soon as we land, I'm out for good."

He gazed defiantly at Shelly, his chin jutting. Everyone else tensed; even the Magma grunts nearby fell silent, watching the confrontation. Shelly, however, did not flinch.

"That's fine, Jace. I can't make you stay, after what happened today. Archie...He betrayed us." She looked to the others. "All of you—you're free to go, if you like. I'm going to keep on with Team Aqua, but I don't know what Matt and the others want to do, and...Well, we can't control Kyogre. I think that's obvious now. So if any of you want to resign, I won't hold it against you."

No one spoke. Then Jace tugged off his bandana and crumpled it into a ball, tossing it at Shelly's feet.

"You can keep that," he said. "Give it to some other dumbass."

Everyone stared at the bandana as though it were alive. When Shelly bent to retrieve it, another one landed next to her hand, and she straightened to watch as everyone around her removed their bandanas—some tearing them off, others carefully untying them. Then (wordlessly, because Jace's explanation had been enough) everyone rose to their feet one by one and turned in the only part of their uniforms that bore the Team Aqua insignia.

The last person to do so was Brooke. She looked nervously aware of the attention on her as she clambered to her feet and handed Shelly her wrinkled bandana with an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry, Commander Shelly," she said, and sounded it. "But Jace is right—we're lucky to even be alive right now. Besides...If we really can't use Kyogre...Well, then what's the point?"

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

When Tabitha and Courtney entered the wardroom, it was to find Maxie sitting deep in thought, alone at the metal table. He looked up when Tabitha closed the door behind him. Courtney lowered her hood and shook out her shining dark hair, running a gloved hand through it to smooth it out.

"So, boss, what's the deal?" she asked. "What did you and that Lance guy talk about?"

Maxie sighed, then touched his side briefly before speaking.

"Tabitha, Courtney...You've both been a great help to me, for a long time, and for that I thank you. But I'm afraid that everything is over now."

Neither admin responded to this right away. Tabitha simply looked blank, like he hadn't understood; Courtney, however, shifted her weight and put one fist on her hip.

"What do you mean _over_, boss? Is that G-Man gonna try and bust us up? 'Cause he's only one guy—we can take him out no sweat."

Maxie sighed again.

"You misunderstand, Courtney. Team Magma...The world I wanted to create...It was all for nothing. I convinced myself that I knew how to control ancient Pokémon, but I was wrong. I'm sure Tabitha has explained to you what occurred on the island..."

"Yeah, he explained it." Courtney exchanged a glance with Tabitha. "But, boss, aren't we gonna go after Groudon?"

"Hm?"

"Groudon's awake now. So we gotta get the Blue Orb back, right? If we can just find that again, all we have to do then is track down Groudon, and that'll be a piece of cake if it's moving around. We're _this_ close to finally getting a hold of it..."

"No, Courtney, we're not," Maxie said. "We cannot control Groudon. And even if we could, its power is beyond even what I imagined. Our plans are at an end."

Tabitha opened his mouth as if to speak, then seemed to think better of it. Courtney, however, drew herself up, looking incredulously between Maxie and Tabitha.

"Wait—so that's it? Seriously? We're just gonna give everything up right now, the whole team, because of one setback?"

"I don't think you understand the magnitude of the situation, Courtney," said Maxie wearily. "This is not a...a _setback. _Groudon's power is fundamentally beyond human control."

"And we're not even going to _try _to change that? After everything we went through to find it?"

"You weren't there, Courtney," Tabitha interrupted. "The Blue Orb didn't control Groudon, it just made it go crazy. And that Pikachu that absorbed the Orb...There was nothing we could do."

Though Courtney did not speak immediately, her face betrayed the struggle going on inside her. At last she burst out, "Damn it, Maxie, I thought you knew what you were doing!"

"I thought I knew, as well."

"So then what have we been busting our asses all this time for, huh? What was the point of all of this?" She gestured to the craggy M emblazoned on her chest.

"Courtney, please, I appreciate your position, but the reality of the situation—"

"—is that everything was a lie. You don't know shit about Groudon and the Blue Orb was a dud and this whole project has turned out to be a lie. Is that 'the reality of the situation'?"

"Yes."

There was a tense silence. Courtney looked vindicated; Tabitha's gloved fists had clenched. Maxie merely appeared tired. The lines on his pale face seemed to have etched themselves deeper in the span of only a few minutes. He rubbed his temples with one hand, wincing as though the fluorescent light pained him.

"There is no more need for Team Magma," he said at last.

"What?" Tabitha asked.

Maxie dropped his hand and looked up.

"I formed Team Magma with the ultimate goal of acquiring a Groudon and harnessing its power. Today I have learned that is not humanly possible. Therefore it seems Team Magma as an organization has no further reason to exist."

"But Maxie, sir," Tabitha said, "you don't mean—you're going to dissolve the team?"

"I don't see why not, Tabitha." Bitterness crept into Maxie's voice. "Courtney is right. I am a failure, and I have nowhere to lead you now."

"Don't say that," Tabitha countered, but Courtney hmphed and folded her arms.

"Well, at least you're honest, boss. Not that it makes all this any easier to swallow..."

"Sir," Tabitha tried again, "are you sure you want to quit now? After everything we've accomplished?"

"Explain to me what we've accomplished, Tabitha." The bitterness in Maxie's voice was unmistakeable now. "Apart from wasting an enormous amount of time, money, and effort, and unleashing the wrath of an uncontrollable ancient Pokémon upon the world."

Tabitha had no answer to this. Courtney exhaled loudly through her nose.

"Well, okay then," she said. "Fine. If that's the way this whole thing's gonna end, then fine. Just fucking peachy."

"We can't do this," Tabitha said. "We can't just give up."

"Well, you're the ones saying we can't control Groudon! What, you think I _want _this to have been a waste of my life?"

"This isn't about you, Courtney!"

"Shut it, Tab."

"Both of you, calm down—please." Maxie sounded strained. Tabitha swallowed what he had been about to say, but Courtney did not bother.

"Boss, look: I get what you're saying. But we've got the whole damn team crammed onto this sub, and I don't think they're gonna appreciate this news very much. Besides—if it's all over, then why are we headed to Mossdeep? There's nothing out there for us."

"Lance's request. He's asked for our help in mitigating this situation."

"Oh_-ho! _Well, _that _sounds like fun. Do you believe him, boss? 'Cause I've heard prison's lovely this time of year."

"Courtney, shut up," Tabitha snapped, but Maxie gave him a sharp look, and he set his jaw.

"This is how I see it, boss," Courtney said. "We don't have Groudon, we don't have the Blue Orb—which, apparently, doesn't even work—we don't know where either of those things are anymore, and thanks to Team Aqua, we now don't have a single piece of equipment left except this submarine." She jerked a gloved thumb at the metal roof above them. "Now, if you and this G-Man wanna try and wrangle Groudon and Kyogre with your bare hands, fine. Have fun. But that isn't what I signed up for, and it's not what the rest of the team signed up for either. I don't wanna be dragged all the way to Mossdeep to get tossed in the slammer."

"We're going to Mossdeep, Courtney," Tabitha growled.

"Yeah, Tab, we are. The coordinates are locked in. But I don't wanna _stay_ there." She tossed her hair. "Boss, you have to give everybody a chance to back out of this. It's only fair. If Team Magma's not about using Groudon anymore, then I'm out, and I'll take anybody else who wants out with me. We can head somewhere else after we drop you guys off—as far away as we can get."

"I can't believe you." Tabitha's teeth were gritted. Maxie, however, looked resigned.

"Tabitha, she's perfectly right. I cannot ask anyone to continue obeying my orders if not even I know what we intend to do from now on." He looked to Courtney. "Courtney, I think your idea is sensible. Those who want to withdraw from the team can leave with you, and anyone who wishes to remain can depart with me at Mossdeep. I don't expect we'll be needing the submarine anymore."

"I'll announce it to everyone, sir," Tabitha volunteered. Courtney looked over at him, then shrugged.

"Fine by me, Tab. But try not to flip your shit when everyone with half a brain throws in the towel."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

When Tabitha and Courtney returned to the crowded mess deck, stepping over Ash and his friends, it was to find the buzz of talk even louder than when they had left. It rose to a clamor the moment they entered, but lowered just as quickly as people sensed that an announcement was about to be made. Still, there was enough low-level chatter left after a few seconds to warrant a yell from Tabitha.

"_Listen up!"_

The command ricocheted off of the metal walls, echoing across the room; all talk dissipated at last. Tabitha scanned the faces of the several dozen grunts—the whole of the team, barring the handful of people manning the control room—and gathered his thoughts. The room was warm enough that most people had thrown back or even pulled off their hoods, so he could see clearly the mixed expressions on his audience's faces. Some looked worried, some curious—some almost angry.

"I'm sure you're all wondering what happens now," he said loudly. "Well, here's the deal: we're splitting up."

A murmur greeted this. One of the grunts in the front row piped up.

"Commander Tabitha, sir, do you mean—there's no more Team Magma?"

"No, that's not what I mean," Tabitha said. "I mean our plans have changed. The Blue Orb didn't work like we thought it would, and now Groudon and Kyogre are on the loose. We're going to stop them."

"How are we gonna do that?" someone demanded. "We don't even have the base anymore!"

"Why didn't the Blue Orb work?"

"What happened to Groudon, anyway?"

"Why are we going to Mossdeep Island?"

"_Zip it!"_ Courtney hollered.

Tabitha looked over at her, but she ignored him and stepped forward to stand beside him at the front of the crowd.

"Here's the deal! If anyone wants to quit Team Magma, this is the time to do it. Commander Tabitha and the boss are going to try and stop Groudon and Kyogre somehow, but I'm not. If you wanna bail, then stick with me here on the sub. We'll drop the others off on Mossdeep Island and then get the hell out of town."

"What about us?"

It was a member of Team Aqua. He had nearly shouted to be heard across the packed room, and now drew all attention, including that of his fellow teammates, as he got to his feet.

"You just gonna dump us off at Mossdeep too, or what?" he demanded. "We're shit outta luck here; we should get a vote. I wanna go back to Lilycove City—that's where our base is."

This produced a flurry of colorful language from Team Magma, which took Courtney and Tabitha's combined demands to stifle. But as soon as everyone had settled down, someone in the middle of the crowd could not resist another jab—"If you dipshits love the ocean so much, why don't you all just swim to Lilycove?"—and it was another half a minute before order could be reasserted. Tabitha threw back his hood to better glare at the crowd once its attention had returned to him.

"Everyone keep your mouth shut!" he barked. "We don't have time to bitch about this, all right? Yeah, things didn't go the way we planned, and if you're too much of a coward to see our mission through, then go ahead and run off with Courtney. But Maxie and I are going to do what we can to keep things under control. Anyone who's willing to follow us will offload at Mossdeep, and we'll figure out what to do from there. You've got until we arrive to make your choice whether to stay or go, but if you go—you're quitting the team for good. Is that clear?"

Mutters passed through the crowd like ripples in a pond, but no one ventured to voice another question.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The next few hours passed without incident, discounting a single solitary lurch early in the journey that made the sub quiver. A couple of the grunts managed to steal some sleep in the stifling room, resting their heads against bare tabletops or their backs against the steel wall; most, however, sat brooding, either silently to themselves, or with whoever was close enough to speak to without undo effort. This soon turned the room into islands of conversation as people debated their options, and if necessary, moved to another spot to find others who shared their tentative plans.

Despite Tabitha and Courtney's joint pronouncement and the attendant ultimatum, Team Magma did not immediately divide into two camps, one ready to continue their work on Mossdeep Island and the other bent on flight. Few of its members seemed certain of their next move, even after much discussion. Some people who wanted to quit resolved to get off at Mossdeep rather than flee to places unknown, particularly those who had some kind of connection to the island city; an old friend or distant relative there was enough to give them a sense that they had, at least, somewhere to possibly go next. But this luxury was rare. The team had members from all across Hoenn, many of whom lacked any sort of relationship to Mossdeep. For most people, Tabitha and Courtney's two options did not seem much different, insofar as neither side had any resources at their disposal, given the morning's loss of the base.

Another sticking point was the events of the early afternoon. The division that crewed Courtney's sub had not witnessed the duel between Kyogre and Groudon, since they had still been out on patrol when the base was sunk; consequently they were not as quick as the others to accept the news that Groudon, the ancient being they had sought for years, was in fact utterly beyond their control. It did not help that no one could explain why the Blue Orb had not worked as predicted, despite the extensive analysis of it that had been done. The fact that it had inexplicably bonded with the Pokémon of a young trainer picked up by Commander Tabitha's patrol that morning (the truth of which rumor was confirmed personally by the children sitting in the corner) seemed an extra slap in the face from whatever deity had made the day go so utterly wrong.

As time in the increasingly stifling mess deck dragged on, the members of Team Aqua managed, not without difficulty, to include themselves in the various conversations about what to do next. Shelly alone kept to herself. Sitting against the wall next to a neat stack of blue bandanas, she remained hard-eyed and dignified in her silence, though when she was asked by one grunt for her input on their discussion, she made it clear that their wisest option was to try and get back to base somehow and supply themselves with money and civilian clothes.

Though Team Magma had already known the location of Team Aqua's hideout, Courtney latched on to its potential uses quite quickly, and when they had less than an hour until their arrival in Mossdeep, she managed to strike a bargain with the Aquas. In exchange for transporting the remains of Team Aqua back to their base after the Mossdeep drop-off, she and whoever came with her would be allowed to repair and resupply the sub there. The Magmas who had already made up their minds to join her did not protest this as much as might have been expected, not only because they had few other options, but also because Shelly made it clear that she would be leaving at Mossdeep, and that it was she and Archie personally, not the grunts, who were responsible for the sinking of Team Magma's ship. Though she did not take part in the negotiations with Courtney, she approved of them.

"I'll call the base tomorrow from Mossdeep," she told Brooke, once the details had been agreed upon and Courtney had returned to the control room. "If I can, anyway; I don't know where I'll wind up. But tell Commander Matt to be expecting to hear from me soon."

"Right."

Brooke glanced over her shoulder, then bit her lip before speaking again in a low voice.

"Commander Shelly—are you sure you want to stay at Mossdeep? I mean...What happened today...It'd be better to come back to base with everyone else." She hesitated. "I...Um, I know you and the boss kind of had a...a thing, but...Well, he's gone now, isn't he? And the whole team—everything about how we were gonna rule the world and make it better with Kyogre, it didn't really...I mean, I guess we never..."

She floundered, but Shelly spared her the trouble of articulating herself.

"This isn't about Archie, Brooke." Shelly looked up into Brooke's nervous face from her seat against the wall. "I can't just walk away from Team Aqua. I have to do this, for my own sake."

"Yeah, but...Commander..."

Brooke could not muster anything more. Shelly looked away, but Brooke did not move, and Shelly glanced up at her again, curious. Brooke struggled with herself, then relented.

"Can I keep my bandana, commander? I know I already quit, but...For good luck, you know? Whatever happens next." She paused. "I mean, if it's okay."

Shelly laughed, but it was reflexive and not at all amused.

"Of course, Brooke. But I don't know which one's yours."

"I do." Brooke knelt, rifling through the bandanas and selecting one without hesitation. "I had to sew it up once."

She pulled it out of the pile and made as if to tie it around her head, then realized what she was doing and stopped herself, instead folding it and sticking it into her pocket. Shelly nodded to her, and Brooke gave a few parting words before rising to her feet and rejoining the party she had been sitting with a dozen feet away.

For a moment, Shelly met eyes with a few of the other Aqua grunts who had been watching Brooke, but all of them turned away from her gaze. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the steel wall, looking tired.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"We're surfacing."

Brock's announcement made Ash and May look up, but Max had already noticed the feeling of the submarine beginning to climb upwards.

"Finally!" May said. "My legs hurt from sitting all jammed up like this." She looked to her brother. "What time is it, Max?"

"Dinnertime," Max grumbled, but checked the PokéNav anyway. "Almost seven. I hope there's a Pokémon Center on this side of town; I don't wanna have to walk forever."

"I think we're all pretty worn out," Brock agreed. "Max, go ahead and look up where the Center is. We'll get our bearings as soon as we land and head there right away. I'm guessing Lance and Gyarados will give us a ride in from the harbor."

"Where is Lance, anyway?" May wondered. "I haven't seen him in a long time."

"Probably in the control room. Bet he wanted to keep an eye to make sure Team Magma actually took us where he wanted to go."

"I need to talk to him," Ash said abruptly. His friends' attention turned to him at once; he hadn't spoken in an hour. "I've wasted a lot of time on this submarine when I could have been looking for Pikachu. I wanna ask him what his plan is."

"I'm not sure Lance has a plan yet, Ash," said Brock. "You gotta remember, he's in the same boat we are—literally."

"Yeah, but he's a Pokémon G-Man. He's gotta have some idea of where Pikachu might be by now."

A sudden jolt sent the entire room lurching, and everyone yelped as they were thrown against either the nearest hard surface or the nearest warm body. A hideous caterwaul from the far end of the room, followed by a whirlwind of extremely original epithets, made it clear that someone had landed on Meowth's tail.

A couple of minutes after everyone had righted themselves, Tabitha appeared in the doorway. He did not enter the mess, simply stopping to yell inside it on his way towards the lower deck.

"We're on the surface! Mossdeep Harbor's close by, but we can't dock there. Everybody stay put and wait for orders."

He disappeared as quickly as he'd arrived, a flash of hooded crimson in the harsh artificial light. Brock leaned out into the corridor to watch him vanish down a ladder a couple of yards away, and to his surprise, the horns of Tabitha's hood reappeared within view in moments.

"Hey, you kids!"

Brock started. "You mean us?"

"How many other kids are in this sub? Yeah, you. Get down here, the G-Man wants you off board as soon as possible."

With a little difficulty, Ash, Brock, May, and Max gained their feet and scraped together their belongings. Ignoring both the stiffness in their limbs and the commentary from curious Team Magma members, they ventured out into the narrow corridor beyond the mess deck and filed down the ladder, Max first, Brock last. This brought them onto another corridor, only marginally wider than the one above, and Tabitha was already halfway down it, his footsteps echoing in the narrow space. In single file, they followed.

"Do you guys feel that?" May asked. "It's like..."

"Fresh air!" said Max, and sped up, scrambling towards the salt-tinged taste that was much more breathable than the stale air in the mess deck. But his euphoria did not last long. Tabitha and Courtney were arguing at the entrance to the forward hatch.

"—told you something was wrong!" Courtney was saying. "What, you think the equipment lies? I told you that pressure wave—"

"Courtney, you can't take the sub now, this is too—"

"Fuckyou, Tab. Yes, I am fucking taking the sub. If this what you guys started on Monsu today, then I'm getting the hell away from here as fast as possible. You think the cops are just gonna let this slide because Maxie had his head up his ass?"

"Don't you dare blame_—_"

"Let what slide?" Max interrupted. Courtney and Tabitha both looked over at him so fiercely that he gulped and took a step back, trodding on May's foot.

"None of your business, punk," Tabitha snapped, but Courtney snorted.

"They're about to find out, Tab," she said. "You kids climb up the hatch, the G-Man's already up on deck." After a beat, she added, "Have fun in Mossdeep."

There was something about the way she said this that unnerved the four of them. After some hesitation, Max slipped past the two Magma admins and nervously clambered up the inner hatch; when he reached the partition deck and started up the outer hatch, May followed, then Ash and Brock.

Though the air grew more breathable as they climbed, _fresher _was not the correct word for it. It had more oxygen, but also something else—strange, unpalatable tastes that they could not place immediately. When they at last emerged onto the rocking deck into the windswept evening, they understood.

"—as soon as possible," Lance was saying. He had mounted Dragonite and was hovering over the deck, talking over the wind down at Maxie. "You're going to have to give me your word that you'll be there, you and Commander Shelly both."

"I will be," Maxie answered weakly, "though I cannot speak for Commander Shelly."

"Then I'll send word there when I can."

"Lance!"

Both Lance and Maxie looked over to Ash.

"Lance, what—what's going on?"

"I'm going to go find out."

He unclipped a Pokéball from his belt and opened it, releasing Gyarados into the sea beside the sub.

"Ash, you and your friends need to go to the Pokémon Center, if you can, and wait for me there. When Gyarados has helped get everyone on shore, put it back in its Pokéball. I'll come and get it as soon as possible." He lobbed the empty Pokéball at Ash, who caught it reflexively. "I'm trusting you with Gyarados, all right? But I have to go now!"

And Dragonite flew away.

With the dying rays of a brilliant, blood-red sunset at their backs, everyone watched Dragonite speed towards the city in the distance. Ash, May, Brock, and Max all looked numb with incomprehension, staring at the sight before them as though unsure it were real. Brock spared a glance for Maxie, who was clutching the wet railing with white knuckles, his pale face now deathly, his tailored overcoat mudstained. Only with effort could Brock recognize him as the same man who had sat them down in his spacious office that morning and eloquently described Team Magma's path to the future.

Mossdeep Island was half a mile away, but the height of the floodwater made it look like three miles. Where the harbor should have been, there lay instead a great swath of floating wreckage: the shattered remains of buildings and boats, cars and unidentifiable debris, some of it aflame. The smoke from this rose to mingle with that of other fires deeper in the city, and something dark and hazy, too, fell down from the heavens, smoke in reverse, settling over the watchers as they stood on the rocking deck. It was ash, from Monsu Island's volcano.


	4. Chapter 4

It was half an hour before everyone who wanted to leave the sub managed to do so. The news of Mossdeep's condition made some who had wanted to disembark change their minds, and vice-versa, but the act of getting to shore presented a problem, as night fell and left burning flotsam the only source of light. In the end, Gyarados could only manage to carry the whole group by lying completely flat in the water, and even then it was not a comfortable situation for anybody, as they had to sit right up against one another with their legs dangling into the cold water. Ash and his friends sat behind Gyarados's head, followed by Maxie, Tabitha, Shelly, and Brooke, the latter the only member of Team Aqua who had reversed her decision. Just under a score of Magma grunts crammed themselves onto the rest of Gyarados's long body, and last of all trailed Team Rocket, who did not have room to sit on Gyarados and so were forced to hold on to its tail fins while floating in the water. Additionally, everyone had tied a Team Aqua bandana around their face to keep from inhaling the fine ash drifting down from the dark sky. It made the disembarking party look like a band of thieves.

Courtney had enough tact to wish them all luck before battening down the hatch, but soon enough, the submarine eased away and vanished beneath the black water, leaving the motley group alone in the darkness. When Gyarados started forward, it had to undulate very gently so as not to submerge any of its passengers.

With agonizing slowness they made for the harbor, Gyarados doing its best to avoid the largest chunks of debris on the surface. Only scattered fires broke the blackness of the night around them, and even these looked unearthly, the gently-falling ash having ringed them with strange, brown halos. The smell of burning wood and plastic and who knew what else was at least as choking as the ash.

May said something first. She did not speak loudly, but the silence along Gyarados had been so complete before that everyone heard her.

"Brock?"

He looked over his shoulder. "What is it, May?"

"How do you think this happened?"

Brock shook his head. "I don't have any answers, May. I just hope we find someone soon who can help us figure this out."

_"Ahoy!"_

Everyone started. Only Brock had the presence of mind to wave, and soon they could distinguish something large moving toward them from the direction of the city, smashing flotsam out of its way with powerful forelegs. A person was riding it, and they gave another couple of calls as they approached, until at last the creature had paddled right up alongside them in the water.

It was a Swampert. Its blue skin glistened in the light of nearby flames as it swam in place, its eyes glittering. The trainer riding it looked no older than Ash and May, though it was difficult to tell exactly, as he'd tied a handkerchief around his nose and mouth, leaving only his eyes exposed beneath his hat. If he thought either the red Gyarados or its slew of passengers unusual, he did not show it.

"Hey! You guys had any luck finding people?" The boy's voice was muffled through the handkerchief. Though he seemed to have addressed himself to Ash and his friends at Gyarados's head, it was Tabitha, behind them, who answered.

"We're not out here looking for people," he said shortly. "What's going on? What the hell happened to this city?"

The boy stared at them. Despite his mask and the uneven light, his dumbfounded expression registered clearly.

"Is that supposed to be a sick joke?"

"No. We don't know anything about this."

"What, you didn't feel the earthquake?"

A pause.

"Earthquake?" May said at last. "When...When was there an earthquake?"

"Almost three hours ago." Disbelief tinged the boy's tone. "The damage wasn't too bad, but then the wave came right on top of it—went halfway up the island." He waved at the waterlogged city behind him, lit by flaming debris. "It's hit all of eastern Hoenn—Lilycove, Izabe, everywhere. Seriously, how did you not know?"

"We've been in a submarine all day," Tabitha answered. "We didn't realize what it was, out in the open ocean."

"Submarine? So wait—does that mean you don't know about the eruption? Or the hurricane?"

"What?"

The trainer was now so astounded that he had to collect himself before speaking.

"A volcano erupted early this afternoon," he said. "Some middle-of-nowhere place called Monsu Island, northwest of here. A plane went down in the ash, and now it's started to fall here, too. Well, you noticed." He indicated the handkerchief over his own mouth, and by implication, the bandanas they wore around theirs. "And they were saying on TV that this huge rainstorm just appeared out of nowhere, like magic or something, out in the middle of the ocean. They said it would hit Sootopolis City tonight if it stayed on course, but who knows? I mean, it sprang up just like that, maybe it'll disappear just like that too." He shook his head. "Man, it's unbelievable. Like somebody flipped a switch today and nature went completely insane."

There was a long silence. Brock broke it.

"We need to go to the Pokémon Center," he said. "We're supposed to meet someone there. Can you give us directions?"

The boy laughed mirthlessly.

"The Pokémon Center's underwater. You won't be meeting anybody there, that's for sure. But Nurse Joy's all right, I heard she's up at the Space Center."

"The Space Center?"

"Yeah, you know—the big famous Space Center downtown." The boy waved away to his right again. "It held up to the quake and the water didn't make it all the way across the island. That's one of the bases the police have set up. I think they'll let people who have nowhere to go sleep there tonight, so that might be where your friend is, if he's okay. I know me and some other trainers who were staying at the Pokémon Center are crashing there."

"How do we get there from here?"

The boy considered this.

"Head straight into the city, that way," he pointed, "and after about two miles the water will get shallow enough to wade in. Keep on going and eventually you'll get far enough uphill so that things will get dry again; you can head on foot through the rest of the city. The Space Center's on the other side of the island, though, so good luck getting there before midnight. But I think maybe some buses are running on that side of town—the roads aren't cracked as much over there."

"Things sound pretty bad," Brock said. The boy nodded.

"Yeah, well, it's hard to tell how bad just yet. But at least there haven't been any aftershocks so far. I don't know why, they said on TV there should be, but I'm not complaining." He adjusted his hat. "Look, Kip and I came out here to search for people who need help, and you guys all seem okay, so I'll show you into the city, but I can't take you far. Every minute counts out here." He nudged his Swampert. "C'mon, Kip, let's go. You guys follow me."

The Swampert turned and headed back the way it had come. Gyarados followed, speeding up a little to keep pace; its passengers clung tighter as its movements sent them rhythmically plunging waist-deep into the cold, mucky water. The going was relatively smooth, as Swampert cleared the way ahead by shoving piles of debris aside or freezing them in place with an Ice Beam, but the journey took almost twenty minutes nonetheless. By the time Swampert halted, the looming shells of multistory buildings rising out of the water around them signaled their arrival in Mossdeep City proper.

"I'll leave you guys here," Swampert's trainer announced, having turned to them again. They could barely distinguish his outline. "Like I said, the Space Center's on the other side of the island—ask for directions as you go. I hope you find your friend."

"Thanks for your help," Brock said, then hesitated; the boy picked up on the unasked question.

"My name's Brendan. And I'll probably wind up at the Space Center later, so maybe we'll run into each other again. Either way, you guys be careful on your way across town, all right?"

"We will," said May. "Thanks again for getting us this far."

"No prob. Least I could do."

Brendan and Swampert turned away, gliding past Gyarados and back towards the harbor. Soon the only sign of them was the sound of splashing water, growing ever fainter in the darkness.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

So much debris clogged the flooded streets that the only way they managed to move towards higher ground was by following what had once been a main roadway, Gyarados skirting the shattered remains of cars and houses as best as it could. The ash stung their eyes and formed a film on the surface of the water, like a thin layer of cement; the occasional whisper was stifled by the oppressive muteness around them. But no one spoke much. Talking about it would have made it real, would prove that they were real people in a real place and not phantoms gliding numbly through the ghost of a city.

Indeed, if it had not been for the physicality of it all—the stinging ash and the cold water, distant sirens and bright fires and the acrid stench of burning civilization—Maxie would have thought this a nightmare. Even now he could not take it all in, not really; he clung to Gyarados's slippery scales without voluntary effort, like a statue that had been welded into place. He was conscious of time passing only as a matter of scientific fact. He himself could not judge its pace, could not tell whether they had passed a particular street corner five minutes or half an hour ago. It was all the same: the swirling water, the haze of ash, the darkness broken only by firelight. He was only vaguely aware of things like cold, and hunger, and the pain in his side that he had decided was an almost-bruised rib.

Maxie had not expected this. He had expected _something, _certainly, from the minute that Kyogre and Groudon had disappeared, but he had assumed on the long journey here that whatever consequences arose from their awakening would happen at some point in the future, after he'd had a day or two to collect himself and decide what to do next. Yet why should that have been so? Why should Groudon and Kyogre, driven into a frenzy by the Orbs, have hesitated one minute to exercise their long-dormant powers? Because he, Maxie, needed time to think things over? Laughable.

The reality of his own insignificance settled over Maxie as destruction floated endlessly past him on either side. The first hint of it had been conjured that morning (was it really only that morning?), when that boy's Pikachu had bonded with the Blue Orb without warning or cause; that had been the first sign that perhaps he did not know everything. He had done his damnedest to know everything, had schemed and spied and stolen when the knowledge could reach him no other way, but it had not been enough. The promise of the Blue Orb had been _control, _the potential to harness the power of the earth to rational human will, but this...This was not control. This was chaos.

The minutes dragged slowly on in the darkness. Their only proof that the entire city had not been abandoned was the cries of sirens that could not have been more than five miles distant, though the sound was eerily muffled by the fall of ash. They encountered no one, living or dead.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The Space Center buzzed with activity, every window of its first few stories lit. A steady flow of people came and went, as if the coming weekend's shuttle launch had suddenly been rescheduled for midnight, but the crowd consisted not of scientists and spectators, but of harried police officers, rescue workers, and civilians. It was hard to tell who among them looked more haggard.

The ground floor had been appropriated as a base of operations some hours ago, and a makeshift checkpoint station ran along one wall, headed by police. People lined up to report missing family, friends, and Pokémon, or clustered around several televisions that had been set up in one corner, each one jury-rigged to a Magneton. Despite the crowd, the atmosphere was subdued. No one spoke loudly, and the news bulletins from the cluster of televisions could be heard halfway across the busy room. Although most people who needed somewhere to sleep were directed to one of the upper stories, an appreciable number lay unconscious here on the floor, amidst the bright lights and bustle, most looking like they'd passed out where they sat waiting for the arrival of someone they knew. The police didn't seem to have the heart to force these hopeful souls upstairs, merely waking them and telling them to move toward the wall if they were in the way of traffic.

Near the entrance, Officer Jenny stood with her back to the front door, arguing with a man in a cape who seemed to have some authority, though he wore no police badge.

"I can't spare anyone," she was saying. "I'm sorry, but I still don't have any personnel to lend you, period. We're stretched paper-thin. I've got every single unit in the city manning relief stations and organizing supply lines, and there are hundreds of people missing on top of that. I wish we had more people free to do search and rescue shifts, but the relief stations aren't going to coordinate themselves, either."

"I understand that, officer, but this is critical," Lance replied. "There are some people I have to find as soon as possible. I told them to meet me at the Pokémon Center before I knew it was flooded, and I haven't been able to locate them since. Believe me, I've been looking." He dusted ash out of his hair. "It's been almost three hours."

"Have you tried checking any of the other emergency stations?" asked Jenny wearily. "The Contest Hall, or the airport, or anywhere else?"

"I haven't been able to, officer, which is why I'd like—"

He broke off suddenly, staring over Officer Jenny's shoulder towards the glass front doors. A large group of people had just entered and were being ushered out of the way by a pair of guards. They looked exhausted, stained head to foot with mud and ash, pulling bandanas from around their dirty faces: four children, two women in blue jeans, and a score of people in hooded uniforms that had once been red and gray. Officer Jenny either did not notice Lance's sudden hesitation, or did not care.

"I appreciate your organization's authority," she said, "but I can't help you right now. I'm sorry, but that's all there is to it."

"Never mind, officer. My problem's just been solved."

"Lucky you," Officer Jenny said dryly. Lance made as if to excuse himself, then paused.

"Officer, maybe I can do something for you now. You said you needed volunteers?"

Jenny sighed and rubbed the side of her face.

"No, I don't need volunteers. I don't have time to recruit volunteers. I need..."She surveyed the room, her gaze lingering on the uniformed police directing the flow of the crowd and sitting behind tables at the makeshift checkpoint. "I _need_ a couple of dozen people who are already organized, who are trained to work together, and who have nothing else to do at a time like this." She managed a sarcastic smile, adding, "And if they've got matching shirts, well, that would be a nice bonus."

Lance glanced over her shoulder at the battered remains of Team Magma, now clustered along the far wall.

"Give me a minute, officer."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

As it turned out, the Magma grunts proved too exhausted and hungry to be of any immediate use. However, Lance made it clear to Maxie and Tabitha that their organization owed it to society to do something productive, and it was decided that the lot of them could sleep in the basement before replacing some of the local officers for the next shift in a few hours. Tabitha protested this arrangement until Lance pointed out that having a warm, dry place to spend the rest of the night was more than they all deserved at that point.

Ash, Brock, May and Max fared little better. After thanking them for taking care of Gyarados and apologizing for leaving them in the first place ("I should have just brought you all with me right away, I didn't realize how bad things were,") Lance proved surprisingly unhelpful, having no concrete answer to Ash's question about what he intended to do to find Groudon and Pikachu, and seemingly too tired to explain what he had been up to for the past few hours beyond "organizing things here and trying to get in touch with my headquarters." In the end he told them that he was busy, that he would talk to them in the morning if he had time, and that it was best if they found a place to sleep upstairs with the other refugees. He then disappeared, leaving them as lost as any of the other weary and frightened people milling around the lobby. It was a mark of the seriousness of the situation that Brock did not beeline for the nearby Officer Jenny as soon as Lance left.

"Well," he said, visibly forcing himself to not crane his neck to get a better view of her, "at least we have a roof over our heads now. That's something."

"I'm exhausted,"May managed, and looked it; the journey to the Space Center had not been easy, even though they had hitched a couple of rides on the way. "And starving. And all of this..." She looked around, then sighed heavily. "This is just so, so horrible. I wish Kyogre and Groudon had stayed at Monsu Island and not caused this awful mess."

"It's not their fault," Ash said darkly. "It's Team Aqua and Team Magma's fault." He glanced over his shoulder towards the other end of the room, where Team Magma, along with Shelly and Brooke, had vanished. "They're the ones who woke up Kyogre and Groudon and made them mad, and now Pikachu's caught in this whole mess too. I should be looking for it, it could be on the other side of Hoenn by now. Who knows where Groudon's got to?"

"I just want to sleep," Max piped up, and stifled a huge yawn. Brock yawned too.

"I guess we should do what Lance said," he admitted. "If I weren't about to fall over, I'd help out down here, but..." He looked longingly to where a bleary-eyed Nurse Joy, assisted by Chansey, was inspecting injured Pokémon at a distant table; it took him a second to snap himself out of it. "But we can't do anything if we're wiped out; we'll just be a burden. It's been a really long day. Let's crash somewhere and figure out our next step in the morning."

No one had a better plan, and so the four of them made their way across the crowded room, at last reaching the wide flight of stairs at the far end and being told by a policewoman that there should be enough room for them on the eighth floor. As the elevator was reserved for the injured, the four were obliged to climb the steps. Max was so sleepy that he stumbled several times, and when they finally reached the eighth floor, it turned out to be full, and they had to continue on to the ninth.

It was evident that at one time—probably that morning—the ninth floor of the Space Center had been a sea of cubicles. A great number of desks and other office paraphernalia had been crammed along the far wall, leaving bare a huge, thinly-carpeted floor that looked like an impromptu campground, everyone from extended families to lone individuals staking out a space to sleep. A few had blankets and food, but most had no belongings; evidently they had been lucky to escape with their lives. Though most people slept, half of the fluorescent lights remained on overhead, and on the far left, a small TV embedded into the wall cast an aura of bright light across that side of the room. People sat crowded in front of it as though near a campfire, silent, sleepless, watching. The audio was quiet, but not muted. Closed captioning would have obscured the scrolling bulletin of updated casualty figures on the bottom of the screen.

Ash and his friends found a piece of unclaimed carpet within view of the television. They only had one sleeping bag left, and spread it like a blanket over their little patch of floor. Though exhausted, they could not help but watch the news. May released Skitty from its Pokéball and held it in her lap, gently scratching it behind the ears as she gazed wide-eyed at the somber-looking anchorwoman.

"—update on JohtoAir Flight 23, which made an emergency water landing close to two o'clock this afternoon when ash from a volcanic eruption on Monsu Island disabled its engines. Medical sources in Ever Grande City have just confirmed that seventy-five of the one hundred and seventeen people on board, including the airline personnel, are still officially missing. Rescue efforts, which were interrupted by the earthquake that occurred two hours later, resumed at around—"

"This is like a nightmare," May whispered, clutching Skitty to her chest. "All of these poor people, and Pokémon..."

She had half-expected a response from Max, and when none came, she looked over to find him already asleep, curled in a ball on the sleeping bag, his glasses folded neatly beside him. May sighed, and her sigh turned into a yawn. Skitty mewled when she picked it out of her lap.

"Sorry, Skitty, but you should stay inside your Pokéball for now, okay?"

Skitty mewed again and nuzzled her hand, then gave it a nibble. May smiled faintly.

"I'm sorry, Skitty, I don't have any food for you right now. But we'll find some in the morning, I promise." She scratched behind its ears again. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm really hungry too."

There was a brief flash of red light as Skitty was recalled. May stretched out along the far end of the sleeping bag, muttered something about wanting a shower, and was almost instantly asleep. Brock followed her example, or rather Max's, as he slept curled in a ball to give his younger friends more room.

Ash stayed awake the longest. When he finally drifted off, he was sitting upright, his head buried in his bent knees, hat askew, still facing the bright television.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The basement of the Space Center, it transpired, contained a rock-floored Pokémon battlefield, its sections demarcated with white chalk, light coming down from the ground floor through a series of skylights running along the top of one wall. Why a league-standard battlefield had been set up here, of all places, no one could guess. No one had the energy to guess.

Under Tabitha's watchful eye, everyone from Team Magma settled down in scattered twos and threes, the hard ground no match for their total exhaustion from the journey across the city. Some people released their Mightyena and used them as pillows, or simply as sources of warmth; when everyone was at last settled, Tabitha took another headcount and realized Maxie had disappeared.

Instead of calling out for him, Tabitha made sure he was not in the basement, then headed back to the ground floor. When he entered the main hall, he winced in the sudden bright light, and scanned the crowd for that familiar overcoat; he finally spotted it over to the right, behind an empty table that had evidently been in use by the police. On it perched a portable TV, its antennae extended.

Maxie was sitting on the edge of a cheap plastic folding chair in front of the little television. He was not watching it. He was not doing anything, in fact: simply sitting there, elbows on his dirty knees, his bowed forehead resting atop his interlaced fingers. He might have been asleep, or praying. He did not seem to notice when Tabitha approached him, ducking under the cordon strung between two tables.

"Maxie?"

Maxie stirred. When he raised his head, Tabitha could see dark circles under his eyes, contrasting starkly with his pale skin.

"Tabitha...Do you need something?"

"No, sir. I just wanted to make sure you were all right."

Maxie blinked at him, then looked away.

"Thank you, Tabitha. I'm fine."

For a long moment, habit and instinct battled within Tabitha. Instinct won.

"You don't look fine," he said. "Sir." A pause. "I think you should get some rest like everyone else."

Maxie closed his eyes, as though letting himself savor the thought. After a moment, however, he shook his head, then looked again at the grainy, black-and-white TV, which was showing shaky footage of a wall of water hitting Alto Mare that someone had taken from a hotel rooftop. Tabitha watched it for a few seconds, then looked back at Maxie.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Tabitha?"

"You should sleep. You have to keep your strength up."

"I'm afraid it's too late for that."

"I mean it." Tabitha was firm. "Get some rest. I'll look after everything."

"Why do you care, Tabitha?"

"What do you mean, sir?"

Maxie managed an odd, haggard smile, and ran a hand through his red hair. Ash fell from it like dandruff; the amount of it sticking to his hair made him look ten years older.

"Don't you see? Team Magma, everything I've worked for all these years...It was all a lie. The world I wanted to create was never even possible. I thought I understood everything—how to control ancient Pokémon, how to build a better world for everyone—but now..." He sighed, rubbing his pale face, and said through his cupped hands, "You're young, Tabitha, and you've wasted the best years of your life helping a fool chase a fool's dream. I'm sorry."

"You're not a fool, sir. Don't say that."

"But I am, Tabitha." He looked up at the television again. "I am the greatest living fool in Hoenn."

Instead of pressing the issue, Tabitha lowered himself to the floor beside Maxie's chair. Weariness was beginning to overtake him, like a hunter that had finally caught its prey after a long chase. Tabitha pulled off his dirty gloves and pressed the heel of his hand into his eye socket, trying to make the dancing spots of light in his vision go away, but it only made them worse. He noticed that he needed to shave, and rubbed a thumb along his stubbled jaw, grimacing. Then he pulled his hood over his head and wrapped his arms around his knees. He would get up in a second. He just needed to think, that was all.

But his mind could not keep a logical train of thought going for long; memories and speculations and weird half-dreamed things jostled one another in his weary brain. He clung as tightly as he could to the thoughts that were important, but it was difficult; they slipped away from him quickly.

He was very hungry, and a little cold, and needed a shower and shave and change of clothes: not important. They had all made it to safety in one piece: important. Courtney and half the team had deserted them: important, and yet not, anymore. He needed to find a way to feed everyone: important. Everything he owned except Mightyena was on the bottom of the ocean: not important. Maxie was all right: very important...

At last, with effort, Tabitha raised his head. Maxie was still silently facing the TV; Tabitha could not tell whether he was actually watching it, or brooding, or whether he'd fallen asleep where he sat. When Tabitha ventured to speak, his voice was hoarse from weariness.

"Maxie—I'm sorry everything turned out this way."

"It isn't your fault, Tabitha," came the reply. "It is mine."

Maxie heaved a sigh of exhaustion that was more than physical, and then gained his feet. Tabitha straightened, but before he could stagger up, Maxie had put his back to the wall and slid down it heavily, coming to rest on the floor with his legs stretched out in front of him, sighing again.

"Maxie, sir? Are you going downstairs?"

"No, Tabitha. I'm too tired..."

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. Tabitha pulled off his own boots and hooded overshirt and set them aside with his gloves, then tapped Maxie on the shoulder. Maxie opened one eye.

"Sir, you should lie down if you're going to sleep."

Maxie blinked at him, then gave in and clumsily unfastened his overcoat, throwing it over himself like a blanket before lying on the linoleum, not even bothering to remove his shoes. He muttered something, but it was too vague and quiet to tell whether it had been intended for Tabitha or himself. Tabitha sat with his back against the wall a few feet away from Maxie, suspiciously watching any police that passed by, as though he feared they had been waiting for this moment to swoop in with handcuffs, but no one paid them any heed whatsoever. Soon Maxie was breathing deeply. Tabitha finally let himself relax, closing his eyes and tucking his chin up into his bent knees, his strong arms folded across his stomach, and before long he was dead to the world; the activity that filled the lobby might as well have been happening on the moon.

No one who spared the two men a glance as the hours went by paid them any special attention. They were just a couple more sleeping refugees, obviously with nothing to their names except the clothes on their backs. It was impossible to guess that they had begun the morning thinking that today would be the day they ruled the world.


	5. Chapter 5

Shelly could not tell what time it was when she awoke; the amount of light coming from the skylights had not changed. Her body ached from lying on the rocky floor, and she winced as she sat up, massaging her lower back with one hand. Though not fully rested, she knew instinctively that she would not be able to fall asleep again, and so staggered to her feet and stretched. The pain in her back eased.

Brooke was still asleep, curled up on her side, breathing heavily. Shelly wondered whether it was wise to leave her alone with the other side of the room occupied by Team Magma, but when she looked over, she saw they were all gone.

Groping in the half-darkness, Shelly found her still-damp boots and pulled them on, then trooped upstairs. As soon as she entered the lobby, she realized it was later than she'd guessed—already half past nine, according to a clock. The scene was busier, louder, more crowded. A palpable thrum of energy replaced the shellshocked numbness of the night before, and the room as a whole was more organized; lanes had been cordoned off leading to the various tables along the right. Something else seemed different to Shelly as she threaded her way through the packed room, and she realized what it was when she saw a handwritten sign taped high on the wall above one of the tables: "VOLUNTEERS ARE WEARING RED."

Though blue-uniformed police were still in evidence, in many places—guarding the entrance, giving directions, taking down descriptions of missing people and Pokémon—they had been replaced by Team Magma. Their red hooded uniforms stood out clearly, and Shelly was certain she could distinguish Commander Tabitha's voice barking orders from somewhere in the crowd, though he himself could not be seen. It looked, she thought wryly, like Team Magma had taken over the Space Center, the same way she and a squad had taken over the Weather Institute not two months ago.

Shelly ducked out of the way of some passerby and gathered her thoughts. She needed to find something to eat, and to try and get ahold of Matt and the others in Lilycove, to learn whether they were even alive—it was quite possible that the base had not withstood yesterday's catastrophe. But first, she decided, she needed to be alone for a while.

Instead of going back to the basement, Shelly made her way outside through the press of people, discovering when she did so that the fall of ash had ended sometime in the night, leaving the sky mostly clear and the world below covered in a brown film. Whether Monsu's volcano had no more ash to give, or whether the wind had begun to direct it elsewhere, she did not know, but she was glad to see the sun. Her dreams had been filled with dark storm clouds.

There were fewer people out here, though a steady stream flowed into and out of the Space Center, and many had congregated to the left of the building's entrance. It was this alone, and the layer of ash covering everything, that proved something was wrong. This half of the city had not really suffered much quake damage, and the water had not made it here; the sight of all the ordinary, intact streets and buildings made the previous night seem to Shelly like a strange, vivid, horrible dream. Walking in a weary daze through the ravaged streets behind the remains of Team Magma, their collective way led by a group of children with a GPS, the silence broken when they began to run across people—survivors, looters, police, volunteers, people and Pokémon searching singlehandedly for family and friends...

Having set off aimlessly down the side of the main road, Shelly now turned off of it, into a narrow alley. It was thankfully deserted. Only trails of footprints in the ash proved anyone had been here recently. She sat down on the dirty pavement and blocked out the sound of distant voices from the Space Center, closing her eyes, allowing herself to think.

Everything she had been threatening to feel ever since Archie had disappeared beneath the waves yesterday rose high inside her, like the need to be sick, and Shelly rested her elbows on her knees and bowed her head behind her forearms, clutching her scalp. When the tears came, she clenched her teeth to keep herself quiet, but a few sobs still escaped. Grief and anger raged painfully inside her as she sat alone in the empty alley, goosebumps rising on her bare arms, her shoulders heaving.

Archie was dead. She did not doubt it, and yet it was not this alone that hurt. It was the fact that he had betrayed them, had betrayed her; she had spent years following his orders for nothing, for less than nothing, because the entire purpose of Team Aqua had been an illusion. The Red Orb had not worked. Or rather, it had worked, but not in the way they had anticipated. Not in the way Shelly had anticipated, anyway...perhaps Archie had always known what would happen when they finally got their hands on Kyogre.

"_Oh well, Maxie! I was hoping that you'd be able to witness my conquest of the world, but now it doesn't look like that will be possible, sadly. But this should give you a taste—that island you're on will soon be swallowed up by the sea!"_

"_Are you crazy? There are people on this island, as well as your own!"_

"_So what?"_

"How can you say that?"

Shelly whispered her own words aloud, but there was no answer—neither from the world around her, nor from the Archie in her memory, who only laughed, holding the Red Orb aloft. There was no answer, and there never would be. She would never know whether he had intended all along to do what he had done, or whether the Orb had suddenly corrupted his soul—or both.

Where was he now? Metaphysically, she did not know. Physically? Shelly tried not to imagine it, but the vision came unbidden: Archie's waterlogged corpse drifting on the surface of the sea, discovered by Sharpedo and devoured in messy chunks before it began to really rot, whatever fragments that remained then carried by the current to settle, perhaps miles away, on the seabed: a piece of hipbone, the chain he'd worn around his neck. And the Red Orb...Surely it had left his body at death. Was it now lying on the ocean floor somewhere, off the coast of Monsu Island? They had searched for it for so long, had put all their faith in it once they'd found it, and now it was nothing more than a curiosity for passing Pokémon—a hint of crimson in the quiet undersea gloom, another insignificant bauble from the alien world above the waves.

She wondered, too, how he had died—whether he'd simply drowned, or whether his skull had been shattered against a rock. Not that it mattered, really, but part of her hoped that the sea had been merciful enough to kill him quickly. The alternative was imagining his last moments spent thrashing ever more weakly on the bottom of the water, pinned down by the current, his mind so consumed by the Red Orb that he did not even understand why it was growing dark. Or maybe he had understood. Maybe, in some little snatch of time before the end, the Orb had loosed its grip long enough for him to realize what was happening, and why.

But even if it had, what would his last thought have been? She wanted it to be of regret, but could not trick herself into believing that had been the case. She had never known Archie to regret anything. It was not in his nature.

Shelly tried to force herself to stop crying, as if by stoppering her sobs she could dry up the well of pain from which they sprung, but to no avail. Part of her knew she had to let herself feel this, to grieve at least a little for the fact that her life had fallen apart, but most of her wanted to just cram all the anger and confusion and sadness into a box and shove it high out of reach like always. But she couldn't, not this time. She had never lost so much so suddenly.

And yet...

Shelly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Her sobs had begun to slow down, and she stifled a stray hiccup, collecting herself now that the initial wave of pain had rolled over her. It was not as if she felt utterly lost. In a way, yes, she did—how could she not, when the dream she had built her life around had turned to ruin? Yet the way forward was clear to her. Team Aqua would not rule the world after all, Kyogre would not obey them, would in fact have to be stopped, somehow, before it wreaked more havoc...Well, then so be it. If that was what the mission had become, then she would see it through to the end, as she had seen through so many other missions before now. None had been as dangerous, perhaps, or as hopeless, but at least she had the odd comfort of knowing that this new goal was less crazy than the old one. If Archie had been insane, well, then she had been insane too, to believe in him.

She shuddered, clutching her knees tighter. Archie was lucky, in a way; the sea he'd loved so much had taken him home. It was she, Shelly, who was stuck here on dry land, clinging to the shattered remains of the team. She hated him: for betraying her, for betraying all of them, for dying and robbing her of the chance to demand the answers she deserved. And she hated herself, too, for the fact that she could not hate him enough. Even with his laughter ringing mockingly in her head, Shelly could not erase every other memory she had of him. She knew, after yesterday, that none of those memories mattered, yet they still had power over her, and she felt disgusted at herself for it—disgusted because she had told herself it would never come to this, that she would never again give herself a reason to sit and cry over a man who had left for good. Yet here she was, with tear stains drying on her ragged jeans as proof of her failure.

The bastard. The horrible, handsome, traitorous, passionate bastard.

Shelly heaved a final sigh and rubbed her face dry, then got to her feet, dusted ash off the seat of her pants, and headed back to the Space Center, hoping she could scrounge up something in the way of breakfast.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"Come on, Sierra. I just want one pull, all right?"

Sierra growled something under her breath, then handed her half-finished cigarette to her fellow Magma grunt, reaching over Stanley, who was sitting between them. The three of them were perched on the side of the Space Center's wide front steps, their red hoods pulled off, taking their first break since early that morning.

Craig took a long pull from Sierra's cigarette, then exhaled smoke through his nose, sighing in satisfaction. As Sierra had expected, he made no move to give the cigarette back to her. She glowered. Stanley perked up from where he had been sitting with his chin in his hands.

"Hey, isn't that Team Aqua's commander?"

A lone woman was approaching from up the main street. Sure enough, the uniform was unmistakeable.

"What's _she_ been up to?" Sierra wondered darkly.

Craig took another drag and shook his head, talking as he exhaled smoke.

"Who gives a shit, man? It's just her and that one girl left, it's not like they're gonna put up a fight."

"You can't be sure," said Stanley. "I mean, she's pretty tough by herself. She punched out me and Jeff yesterday."

"When?"

"When we were doing guard duty on the cargo hold. She broke in and let Kyogre free."

"Really? So she's the reason the base sank..."

"I guess."

Shelly ascended the steps to their right, ignoring the Magma grunts staring at her a dozen feet away. Beyond where she disappeared through the glass front doors, a light but steady stream of people milled about on the other side of the building.

"Fuckin' bitch," Sierra muttered, when the door had swung shut behind Shelly. "We shoulda just left all the Aquas on Monsu."

"Y'think?" Stanley asked.

Craig shook his head and tapped ash onto the steps.

"What for? Wouldn't have changed anything. All this shit still woulda happened." He waved the stub of his cigarette at the crowd across the way. "You guys gone and looked at that yet?"

"Looked at what?"

Craig finished the cigarette and extinguished the stub on the steps.

"Over there," he said, "there's this big white boulder that's supposed to be good luck. All the astronauts wish on it before they go up into space and shit like that. But people have been putting pictures of missing people on it all morning, like a memorial or something." He shook his head again. "Really fucked up. Did you see that lady inside earlier who lost all of her kids?"

Stanley fidgeted. Sierra fished in her uniform pocket for another cigarette, giving up when she remembered she had none.

"Izabe looks like a bomb dropped on it on TV," she said moodily. "I guess the whole east coast is like that now—like how everything was last night, across town." After a pause, she muttered, "My grandparents live on Izabe."

The three grunts mused silently for a bit. Stanley rubbed some residual ash out of his hair and blinked up at the sun; Craig flicked his cigarette butt down the stairs.

"Well, soon as I can, I'm splitting," he said. "Gotta get hold of my cousin first, but I'll bet he's OK. He lives on this side of town."

"Don't let the boss hear you say that," Stanley warned. Craig hmphed.

"Why does it matter? It's not like Team Magma's got a point anymore, is it? 'Sides, I don't think the boss has a plan. You seen him? He's just been watching the news all morning like a zombie, Commander Tabitha's the one doing all the work." He grimaced. "Courtney knew what she was doing, making off with the sub last night. Those guys are all probably in Petalburg or somewhere by now."

"Yeah, but is that any better?" Sierra countered. "I mean, okay, Petalburg's not a mess, but...At least we've got something to do here, right? At least we're being productive. Kind of."

Another silence fell. It lasted until Commander Tabitha stuck his head out of one of the front doors and announced that their break was over.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

At noon, Tabitha found Maxie right where he had left him two hours ago—standing at the back of the crowd around the pair of televisions, nursing a bottle of water, looking numb and tired. It took Maxie a second to notice Tabitha's arrival.

"Maxie, sir, all units are performing as instructed," Tabitha reported in a low voice. "Everything is under control."

Maxie glanced at him, then sighed, muttered the word "Good," and looked away.

"Do you need anything, sir?" Tabitha prompted. "Anything to eat?"

"Hm? No, Tabitha, I'm alright here. Carry on with...with everything."

Tabitha waited, but no specific orders seemed forthcoming, and he turned and left the way he had come, grimly rubbing his itchy, stubbled face with the back of a hand. Maxie did not watch him go.

"—from Lilycove City was officially confirmed this morning at 1,132 humans and 481 Pokémon, with over twice that number reported missing so far. This brings the total number of known casualties from the Hoenn region to approximately three thousand humans and half as many Pokémon, although police are expecting the confirmed death toll to rise as more bodies are recovered from the hardest-hit sections of major cities, and as the damage to smaller towns begins to be assessed. Authorities say they fear that many isolated island communities may have been completely wiped out by yesterday's disaster." The anchorman shuffled his papers. "Furthermore, we have received reports that Sootopolis City is almost entirely without power in the wake of the massive tropical storm that passed over it in the early hours of the morning. This bizarre storm, currently positioned almost directly between Sootopolis and Izabe Island, has been the source of much—"

Kyogre, Maxie thought blankly, as a computer model of the storm's erratic path appeared onscreen. That was Kyogre, and Groudon...Groudon was out there somewhere, too. Waiting.

"—were felt as far away as Sinnoh. Scientists from the Weather Institute have issued a statement claiming that the lack of tangible aftershocks is the result of the quake's unique seismological origin, though they did not elaborate. However, some experts are now considering the possibility—"

The people around him, the police, the talking heads on TV—they were all treating yesterday's string of disasters like acts of nature, a freak occurrence to which they had to reconcile themselves. Maxie knew the truth: these were simply the first shots fired in a duel. There was nothing but the whims of ancient beasts preventing the occurrence, at any moment, of another quake, another hurricane, another tsunami...

It was strange to Maxie that he should go unharassed now, standing at the back of the crowd, filthy and haggard, clutching a half-empty bottle of water. He felt like the people around him should instinctively sense that he, personally, was the cause of their suffering, but they didn't. No one cursed or shouted or spat at his feet; no one asked what had become of their loved ones, or demanded to hear why he had done this. In fact no one noticed him at all. He had always endeavored to keep Team Magma's public profile low, and his own profile even lower, and now realized how well he had succeeded; the symbol over the heart of his coat meant nothing to anyone here except the police. The reality of this had been driven home to him earlier, when a kind-faced lady distributing bread had given him an extra ration after he mentioned he hadn't eaten since yesterday morning. He had tried to give it back, but the poor woman insisted. She hadn't known any better.

When Maxie at last tore himself away from the spot, it was only because his legs had grown weary from standing all morning. If not for that, he could have stayed there forever, alone in the crowd, watching the casualties mount.

And really, what else was there to do? He wondered this as he slid down the wall near the bit of floor that he'd slept on, brooding, as invisible to passerby here as he had been near the televisions. What was there for him to do now but to watch, to drink his dream to the bitter dregs? Never mind that he had not intended this, that this was nothing like what he had expected and planned and yearned for all these years_. _His grand designs mattered not a whit when there were over three thousand dead.

A strange but fitting image came to him of the Blue Orb smashed upon the ground, leaving a pile of crystalline fragments: glittering, sharp, dangerous, useless. Useless. That was the hardest thing to understand. It had always, always been useless. His dream had not _gone _wrong, it had _been _wrong, from the very day he'd begun...

"Hey."

Maxie looked up, and surprise managed to pierce the veil of disquiet that had enshrouded him. Commander Shelly had found a faded green turtleneck somewhere to replace her uniform top, and stood with her arms folded across her stomach, looking down at him.

"Do you need something, commander?"

"Our friend Lance is looking for you," she told him. "Or was. He left in a hurry, but he needs to talk to you when he gets back. He didn't say when that would be, though."

"Do you know what he wants?"

"Information, I think. He grilled me pretty hard a little while ago. It seems like he's trying to round up anybody who might know anything about Kyogre and Groudon. Scientists, archeologists—anyone either of us has ever tried to get information out of, basically."

"Ah." Maxie looked away from her. "Well, I will speak with him, then. Thank you for telling me."

Shelly did not leave. Maxie looked up again, curious, and she asked, "May I sit?"

He regarded her for a bit, nonplussed, but at last nodded. Shelly sat with her back against the wall a few feet away. Maxie did not know what to make of her expression; it was not hostile, exactly, but there was something hard in it.

"I'd like to call a truce," she said. "Between Team Aqua and Team Magma. I know it seems pointless, since Brooke and I are the only ones here, but I still want to make it official. What happened yesterday...Well, no one got what they wanted. We have to work together now."

Whatever Maxie had been expecting, it certainly hadn't been this.

"To what purpose, exactly?" he asked. "I cannot reasonably object to a truce, of course, but...Well, frankly, it seems that there is nothing to be done."

"Nothing to be done?" Shelly's eyebrows raised. "You're not going to do anything about Kyogre and Groudon?"

"How can we? They cannot be controlled. The Orbs did nothing, and that buffoon Archie—"

Shelly's expression made him cut himself short, and when he did, the anger that had flickered within him was smothered by the weight of reality.

"Commander, don't say anything," he muttered, not meeting her gaze. "I know I have no right to be critical of Archie. I myself understood nothing, even after all my years of research. Not about Groudon, or about the Orbs..." He sighed bitterly. "And the way things are now, I doubt that we humans will be capable of doing anything about it. Those super-ancient Pokémon...Their power is unbelievable. They've upset the balance of nature."

"That's why we have to stop them."

He frowned at her. "Do you genuinely believe that's possible, commander?"

"I don't know what to believe anymore," Shelly admitted. "But we can't just stand by and watch helplessly. The responsibility for putting an end to this falls to us—Team Aqua and Team Magma both. I don't know what you plan to do, but as for me, I'm going to work with Lance. He seems like he knows more than we do. Or no less than we do, anyway."

Maxie did not respond right away, instead studying her with that same frown. At length he said, "Well, I cannot pretend I think there is any hope of us resolving this situation ourselves. But, for what it's worth...I agree to a truce."

"Thank you. I appreciate it."

Maxie sighed and plucked at a stray thread at the hem of his coat.

"Inform me if my team gives you any trouble," he told Shelly. "I hope none of them would be so petty, but what I hope for has turned out to be worth very little, I'm afraid."

"That makes two of us."

Maxie studied her again. He had never seen her up close until yesterday, and though Tabitha had always reported her a formidable opponent, Maxie had never given her or the rest of Team Aqua any thought, unless one counted the occasional flash of arrogant pity for the faceless fools that Archie somehow induced to obey him. As with so much else, he realized now, he had been wrong. He did not know this woman, Shelly, but she was not faceless, and certainly did not seem a fool.

Shelly seemed to have lost herself in thought and sat gazing at nothing, her expression set. Maxie looked for something to say, and after a bit of searching, found it.

"Commander?"

"Hm?"

"I won't presume to know your business," Maxie said. "But...When Team Magma first acquired the Blue Orb, we conducted extensive research on it. It was apparent that one could be possessed by it, but it was not clear under what conditions. So we assumed one's heart and mind had to be weak to be overcome. Evidently we were mistaken." Off of Shelly's look, he admitted, "Archie was many things, but one could not call him weak."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Nothing, commander. I had simply meant, if it were of any consequence to you and your team...Well, perhaps Archie's last actions were not entirely his own."

Shelly looked away. Her profile was still hard, but there was a slight furrowing of the brow that might have been curiosity.

"Is it true that you were friends?"

"Pardon?"

She looked to him again. "Archie told me that you and he used to be friends, once."

Maxie sighed through his nose, then leaned his head back against the wall.

"Yes," he said. "That's true. But it was a long time ago."

For a minute, Maxie and Shelly sat side-by-side in silence. Then Shelly excused herself, getting to her feet and disappearing into the crowd. Maxie was left as alone as one could be in this busy place, and sat wrapped in his musings, heedless of passing people, of the cries of children.

Shelly was quite right: the responsibility of ending this fell to them. They had begun it, after all. Yet how they were to do that, Maxie had no idea. He had no resources; the base and everything in it were gone, in large part thanks to the woman with whom he had just spoken. But he had lost something else, too, something more valuable. Yesterday he had had a vision, a sense of purpose, a destiny towards which to proceed. Today...

He sighed. For a fraction of a second, his side pained him as it had when he'd woken up, and he clutched at it, but in the next moment, the sensation had gone. He sighed again, more gently, and wondered when Lance would return.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

As the day wore on, the Space Center grew less crowded and more efficient. In large part this was because the authorities started coordinating rescue efforts from places closer to the damaged section of the city, principally the Mossdeep Trans-Regional Airport; still, enough people had already set up camp at the Center to keep it bustling. But the atmosphere changed. Every hour that crawled by added to the distance between yesterday's catastrophe and today's concerns; the eruption, the quake, the flood were all in the past, and only their aftermath remained. The immediate danger, people felt, was over.

The news remained somber, the numbers ticked higher, but toward evening the casualty reports became punctuated with hopeful vignettes, stories of heroism and selflessness from old and young, police and civilians, people and Pokémon. In Mossdeep, fires still blazed near the wasted harbor, but some were put out, and no new ones sprang up in their place. Even if the overall situation did not improve much, at least it did not get much worse, either.

Team Magma stayed busy. Though Craig grumbled more than once as he hauled boxes of supplies to and fro, he did not follow through on his resolution to leave, and seven o'clock found him, Sierra, and Stanley sitting once more on the Space Center's front steps, their hoods pulled off, other Magma grunts having taken over their duties. This time, however, the three were joined by Brooke and her Crawdaunt, who had been sitting there when they'd arrived and refused to move. As Tabitha had warned all the Magma grunts not to mess with Brooke or Shelly, the trio was compelled to sit near her, and curiosity eventually prompted them to converse. It went surprisingly well.

"I dunno what's gonna happen," Brooke was saying, breaking a granola bar into chunks and feeding it to Crawdaunt. "Commander Shelly said that Lance guy is gonna hold a meeting here tomorrow morning, but I think it's just for the two of them—well, and your boss too, I guess."

"Meeting? What for?" Craig asked. Brooke shrugged.

"To figure out what to do about Groudon and Kyogre. I mean, nothing bad happened today, but they're still out there, right? It's like a time bomb." She exhaled. "I dunno what we're supposed to do without any equipment, though. I doubt anything's left at base."

"At least you've still got a base," Sierra said accusingly, but Brooke did not react in kind. She looked worried as she fed the last bit of granola to Crawdaunt from her cupped hand.

"I don't know if we do. Commander Shelly and I have been trying all day to get ahold of everybody there, but nothing goes through, all the lines are dead. We haven't heard from them since before the quake, so we think..." She hesitated. "Well, the base was way out in Lilycove's harbor. It's probably underwater."

Craig, Sierra, and Stanley collectively had the grace to not comment on the irony of this, though Craig did manage a sympathetic, "Fuck." There was a beat of silence, and then Stanley said, "Well...Guess we're spending the night here again. Unless anybody's heard anything different."

"I haven't," said Craig. Sierra stopped twirling the ends of her long hair around a finger.

"Maybe we'll get to sleep upstairs, since we've been helping out all day." She grimaced at the memory of how sore she had been upon being woken that morning. "I mean, why is the basement full of fucking _rocks?"_

They pondered this reasonable question. A light wind passed over them, making Sierra pull her skirt lower.

"I dunno," said Brooke at last, "but I'm not gonna complain. Beats sleeping outside like all those people on TV."

She paused, and something that might in better circumstances have turned into a smile flickered across her face.

"Besides...I thought you Magma types liked rocks."


	6. Chapter 6

"Can everybody hear me?" Lance asked again.

A chorus of _yeses _from the massive computer screen on the wall,mingled with background static from a phone line, answered. Lance turned back to the half of his audience that was physically present in the bare conference room: Officer Jenny, Maxie, Shelly, and his friend Steven Stone. Jenny had a small laptop open on the table before her. Steven was leaning back in his chair; Maxie slumped, blinking, over a styrofoam cup of coffee, and Shelly sat with her arms folded, her long red hair tied back.

"Well, if everyone's ready, we can get started," Lance announced at the front of the room. "I don't think we need to go through introductions again, so Bart, can you update everybody on what you told me yesterday about Kyogre and Groudon's location?"

A man in a lab coat an the upper right window of the computer screen rifled through a sheaf of papers.

"Yes," he said, pulling a printout out of the stack and scanning it as he spoke. "Ever since the eruption on Monsu Island the day before yesterday, we've been tracking all the unusual meteorological and seismological activity here at the Weather Institute. We guessed right after the earthquake that Groudon might have been the cause, because it didn't originate on a fault line—in fact, we're still not certain what happened geologically, or if it can be scientifically explained at all. But we do know one thing: the quake that everyone felt wasn't the only one. It was just the biggest. Our instruments have been picking up a series of regular, low-level disturbances that we think are being caused by Groudon; we can't be sure, but our best guess is that it burrowed into the Earth's crust, causing the quake, and now it's traveling deep underground. By tracking these disturbances, we've been able to know roughly where it is. As for Kyogre..."

He flipped to another printout.

"It seems to be able to create a low-pressure zone in the atmosphere near it, and there's been a self-sustaining depression out in the eastern seabed for over a day now, so we don't have to do much guessing there. It doesn't have a trajectory that we've been able to determine, but at least we can tell exactly where it is. The storm it's generated is incredibly powerful; it grazed Sootopolis City the night before last and from what I've heard, the city's power grid is still down. Basically," the director concluded, "if Kyogre moves near any area already damaged by the tsunami, the casualties would be massive. And nothing's stopping Groudon from shifting the Earth's crust again on a whim, or starting up volcanic activity. We can only hope it doesn't head for Mt. Chimney. If _that_ were ever to erupt..."

"It might," said Shelly; everyone turned to her. "My team found Groudon hibernating in a cavern beneath Mt. Chimney. It might want to head back there."

Officer Jenny stopped typing and looked up.

"Let me get this straight. What you're all saying is that this crisis we've had to deal with for the past two days—it could happen again at any time, with no warning?"

"Essentially," Bart admitted. "We don't know much about these ancient Pokémon's behavior, but we _do_ know a lot about what they're capable of doing to the environment, and this is just a sample. If they don't calm down and go back to sleep, things will only get worse. We're living on borrowed time."

Jenny shook her head and typed furiously. Lance talked over the noise.

"At this point, we have two options—cross our fingers and hope Kyogre and Groudon settle down, or try and do something to stop them from causing more damage. I think we're all agreed that number one isn't the best choice. So I want to talk about the Red and Blue Orbs." He looked up at the video screen. "Professor Alden, did you get the data I had sent from HQ?"

"Yes, I've been looking over it." A man with short brown hair pulled back into a ponytail spoke up. "This is incredibly fascinating research, actually—it gives me a whole new perspective on the site I'm digging. I had no idea there were Mizu'a ruins all the way out in Johto, and the site described here postdates even the most recent sites in Hoenn by several hundred years."

"Yes, well, I'm sure it's fascinating from an anthropological perspective," Lance said, "but we need your analysis. I'm familiar with the material, but I don't think anyone else here is. Can you give us all a rundown?"

"Of course." Professor Alden paused, pulling up some scans out of his e-mail, and then continued. "Well, I'm not sure where to begin, but I guess I should lay down the basics. Most of what we know about Kyogre and Groudon comes from the myths of the Mizu'a, a people who lived in the Hoenn region over four thousand years ago, and who at one time had created a powerful civilization that encompassed all of Hoenn and some of the surrounding territory. Some of their cultural traditions are still extant; for example, we know they considered Mt. Pyre a holy site, and used it as a place to honor the dead like we do today." He clicked over to a new browser window. "Now, the Red and Blue Orbs...Well, I would call them mythological artifacts, but apparently they're quite real. Reference to them has been found at several different sites—all shrines—but the only detailed description until now came from a pair of ceremonial tablets dating from the reign of Vyoma II. I can't quote you anything off of them directly, because all we have left are copies of an amateur translation done just after their discovery. The tablets themselves were stolen from a private collection several years ago."

Maxie coughed and hid behind a long drag of coffee.

"However," continued Professor Alden, "this site here in Johto seems to have a lot to do with the Orbs. I haven't had time to look through all the photos yet, but I've got the—"

"Sorry to interrupt, professor," said Officer Jenny, still typing, "but what exactly are these Orbs? What do they have to do with Kyogre and Groudon?"

"Well, officer, I think our guests can answer that better than I can."

Professor Alden looked pointedly at Maxie and Shelly. Maxie finished his coffee and set the cup aside.

"I'm afraid I know less than I had presumed," he said, "but, to summarize: the Red and Blue Orbs supposedly had the power to control the Pokémon Kyogre and Groudon, respectively. Kyogre and Groudon were worshiped as deities for their ability to manipulate the weather; according to one myth, the two of them were the first beings to inhabit the planet, and sculpted it by raising the landmass and carving out oceans. In ancient writings, the Orbs were spoken of as tools by which the king might communicate his will to the gods." He leaned back in his chair. "From memory I cannot say much more than that. All of my concrete information, including the data on the Blue Orb we gathered by analysis, is at the bottom of the ocean." He gave Shelly a displeased look; she ignored it.

"So these Orbs can allow a human to control Kyogre and Groudon?" asked Jenny.

"No." Maxie sighed. "That was the supposition, the record left by the texts. The facts have proved different. The Orbs can possess those who come into contact with them, driving them to madness, and incite Kyogre and Groudon to violent anger. There are, perhaps, more nuances to the process, but I do not know what they are."

"Where did the two of your organizations find the Red and Blue Orbs?" asked Professor Alden. Though his tone was stern, he could not suppress a note of professional curiosity.

"Beneath Mt. Pyre," said Shelly. "They had been sealed away there; it took us a long time to figure that out, since there was hardly any mention of them anywhere. It was practically a lucky guess that brought us to Mt. Pyre in the first place."

Maxie's expression made it clear that he took issue with that interpretation of events, but all he said was, "There was a great shrine at the heart of the mountain that contained the Orbs, protected by many sorts of traps and defenses. It was no easy task extracting them."

"You two vandalized Mt. Pyre?" Officer Jenny said, appalled. Her disgust was mirrored by the rest of the conference, save for Lance; not being a native of Hoenn, he could not fully appreciate the severity of this taboo.

Now Steven sat forward.

"If I can throw this out there—I know the family that guards that shrine, who live on Mt. Pyre. I'm friends with their granddaughter Phoebe. Apparently, according to the rituals that have been passed down in their family, no one was ever supposed to enter that cavern, or even mention its existence to anyone. That's why there was no hew and cry when your groups broke in and tore the place apart." He looked reproachfully at Maxie and Shelly.

Professor Alden, though looking nauseated by the thought of Teams Magma and Aqua destroying a historical site that had been preserved for millennia, collected himself and clicked on something, toggling through a few more windows on his computer screen.

"Well, what's done is done," he said, "and it's clear that the two Orbs don't exactly grant the power to control Kyogre and Groudon like puppets." He looked to Lance. "Do you want me to talk about the Embedded Tower?"

"I'll start off, and you can fill me in if I miss anything important, since you've got the photos and translations in front of you," Lance answered. He alone had not taken a seat, and now turned to them all, his cape swishing. "The Embedded Tower is a ruin out in western Johto; it's a tall tower carved into the side of the cliffs along Route 47 that runs all the way down to the seafloor. It was created by the Mizu'a people—the same civilization that created the Red and Blue Orbs. I don't want to go into archeological and architectural niceties, but that fact is indisputable. Within the Embedded Tower—Professor Alden, can you pull up the fourth and fifth photo scans on our screen? Thanks—Within the Embedded Tower, there's a room that seems to be a shrine to Kyogre and Groudon, which contains some description of the history of the Red and Blue Orbs. I don't think it's necessary to go through it all now, but Professor Alden, you've got a translation there in the data packet I had HQ send you.

"The short version is that the Orbs were created at the behest of a king who wanted to control Kyogre and Groudon, the gods of his people, and ultimately use them as weapons to expand his empire. Some of the priests rebelled, but the Orbs were created anyway. The high priest in charge of doing it ended up taking one of the Orbs and starting a civil war against the king that destroyed most of the empire when Groudon and Kyogre got out of hand. The Orbs are incredibly dangerous; they amplify the selfish desires of those who use them, and drive Kyogre and Groudon mad. From what we can tell, the Embedded Tower was built a long time after that war to commemorate it, because text there specifically states that the Red and Blue Orbs were sealed away once the fighting between Kyogre and Groudon stopped, to prevent it all from happening again."

Everyone digested this. For a minute, the only sound was Officer Jenny's typing, until Steven folded his arms and leaned back in his squeaking chair, frowning.

"All right, so the Red and Blue Orbs were sealed away in Mt. Pyre because the people who created them realized how dangerous they were. And that same civilization built the Embedded Tower at some point afterwards as a reminder of their mistake." His brow furrowed. "But if their civilization continued on long enough to build the tower hundreds of years later, then that means that they were able to stop Kyogre and Groudon from rampaging. The question is: how did they do it?"

"Maybe they didn't," said Shelly. "Maybe Kyogre and Groudon stopped fighting on their own, and the survivors built the tower."

"I don't think so."

Everyone turned to look at Lance. He was pacing, his cape rustling each time he pivoted on his heel.

"I think," he began, stopping to look at everyone, "that the evidence we have access to points to the idea that the Mizu'a actively did something to stop Kyogre and Groudon once their power had been unleashed. Logically, if they were able to create a way to instigate these two Pokémon's wrath with the Red and Blue Orbs, then they might have been able to undo the effects of the Orbs somehow, too. And since the Orbs themselves have survived all this time, the way to deactivate them might also still exist. We just have to find out what it is, as soon as we can."

"But..." The director of the Weather Institute spoke up. "Well, if such an artifact exists, what would it be? And where would we look for it?"

"I don't know, but I have a guess," said Lance. "Maxie, Shelly—what do the two of you know about the Cave of Origin?"

Maxie and Shelly exchanged glances; neither looked like they had expected this question.

"The Cave of Origin?" Maxie echoed. "So it does exist..."

"Maybe, maybe not," said Lance. "But you two believe it does?"

"We had every reason to think so," said Shelly. "I've personally spent a lot of time looking for it. Before Team Aqua found Groudon, we had been looking for the Cave of Origin because we thought Kyogre would be resting there."

"My organization did the same."

"Wait, back up—what's the Cave of Origin?" asked Officer Jenny. "Another ancient ruin?"

"No one's certain," said Steven, "but it's something that's rumored to exist in a few legends. Supposedly, the Cave of Origin is the original birthplace of life, like how Mt. Pyre is the place where this world and the world of the dead come together. I've been interested in finding the Cave of Origin for a long time, if it exists."

"Why?" asked Shelly.

"I collect rocks." Steven was totally unabashed by this explanation. "And if anywhere's got rare and unique stones, it has to be a place like that. I've always hoped it exists so that I could explore it someday."

"Well, even if it does exist, I don't see what use it is at this juncture," said Maxie. "Team Magma sought the Cave of Origin because according to what we understood of certain legends, we thought it would be the resting place of Groudon. But as Groudon was discovered by Team Aqua at Mt. Chimney, and we ourselves traced Kyogre to a seafloor cavern, it seems that there can be nothing of value at the Cave of Origin, wherever it might be."

"Nothing of value?" repeated Professor Alden. "But what if there's a way to nullify the Red and Blue Orbs, and that's where it's been sealed away?"

There was another long pause.

"That's what I've started to think, professor," said Lance, "and I'm glad you brought that up. I think that if there are any answers to be had from the Mizu'a, we'll find them at the Cave of Origin, if it exists. And it would make sense to have the solution to the Orbs' power put there, if the Orbs themselves were stored at Mt. Pyre, since the two places are connected. It's a guess, but it's a good guess, and I think we should act on it."

"But how can we?" asked Shelly. "No one knows where the Cave of Origin is. At least, we don't; the writings we had didn't specify where it was." She looked at Professor Alden in the upper left of the giant computer screen. "What about the Embedded Tower? Does anything there mention the Cave of Origin?"

"Not by name," he said, scrolling through a document of translations, "but there are a couple of descriptions here that fit the bill. Obviously we can't know for sure what's being talked about, or whether it's even a real place, but I think..." He paused, frowning, and highlighted a couple of lines of text. "I mean, again, you have to remember that what's described here might not necessarily be an actual location. But if it were, I would say it's referring to Sootopolis City. It's a pretty specific description."

"Sootopolis," Maxie muttered, resting his elbows on the table and folding his hands. "Hmm."

"We never thought to look there, either," Shelly admitted, making him blink and glance over at her.

"Sootopolis City, huh? That's kind of strange." Steven looked at the ceiling, his arms folded behind his head. "I mean, I know a lot about caves, and I didn't think there were any at Sootopolis at all. The way the city's set up, it's not exactly geologically conducive to cavern formation. Still...It's not like it's impossible. And the Cave of Origin could easily have been dug out by humans and Pokémon instead of being formed naturally. But, if there were something like that in a major city, you'd think people would know. Unless..." He broke off, frowning; Lance picked up the thread of his thought.

"I wish we could just ring up the authorities in Sootopolis and have them do a search, but that wouldn't be feasible even ifthey didn't have anything else to do. On top of that, it's almost impossible to communicate with the city now, after that storm; it's still totally blacked out. The point being, if we want to learn anything, or try to find the Cave of Origin there, we're going to have to go look ourselves."

"Who is 'we'?" Jenny asked at once. "Not that this isn't fascinating, but I can't just up and go trooping off after ancient ruins when my city is in crisis."

"Apologies, officer; I had meant Steven and I." Steven nodded his agreement, and Lance continued, "I'm not going to tear you away from where you're needed. Bart, I'd like you and your colleagues at the Weather Institute to keep tracking Groudon and Kyogre, and if you see that one of them is nearing a major urban area, warn the local authorities." The director nodded. "Professor Alden, I'll keep you updated once we reach Sootopolis City. If Steven and I find anything—if we find the Cave of Origin—we'll document everything there and send it along to you and my own contacts for translation. Hopefully, though, we'll find something more than just ancient writing."

"When are we leaving?" asked Shelly.

"As soon as I can find room on a police boat," Lance answered, then caught himself when he realized who had spoken. "I'm sorry, but you aren't coming."

"And why not?" Shelly demanded. "You can't think I'm going to just stay here and do nothing. You realize I've spent years doing things like this? Looking for this exact cave, even?"

"I appreciate your expertise," said Lance, "but the fact is that you and Maxie are the ones who caused this whole situation in the first place."

"All the more reason why we should go." Shelly looked over at Maxie, waiting for him to support her argument. Maxie frowned, holding the side of his fist to his mouth, then dropped it back onto the table.

"I must agree," he admitted. "The fact that these circumstances arose because of our miscalculations is exactly why we ought to participate. I will leave my team here to continue their volunteer duties, but I myself would prefer to go to Sootopolis. If there is anything to be done there, I will do it."

Lance looked long and hard at the two of them, then relented.

"Well, I can't pretend you aren't qualified," he said. "Officer Jenny, would you object to me bringing these two along to Sootopolis, or were you planning on taking them into custody at some point?"

"You can keep them for now," Jenny replied, not even looking up from her laptop. "Locking them up won't find people who are missing, or make my life any easier. If they can do something useful to the public with you, so much the better."

Neither Maxie nor Shelly looked pleased with the cavalier way Jenny and Lance bandied about their fate, but didn't openly complain. Lance looked resolute.

"All right, that decides it. Anybody have anything to add?"

The director of the Weather Institute coughed and flipped through his printouts.

"I'd just like to say that we've got a couple of our programmers working on mapping all the different data we're collecting on Kyogre and Groudon's movements," he announced. "As soon as they've got the display module up and running, Officer Jenny, we'll find a way to connect you and the other police forces to it, so you can watch the readouts in real-time. I don't know how much predictive power it will have—none, quite possibly—but I think it would still be of use."

"Thank you very much," said Jenny heartily. "I'll pass that on to my staff."

"And I'll give all this information on the Embedded Tower a good going-over," said Professor Alden, "and contact you if I discover or translate anything your organization missed. No offense meant, of course."

"None taken." Lance turned to Jenny. "Officer, it looks like we'll have to hitch a ride to Sootopolis City. Are there any boats heading out this morning?"

"To Sootopolis? None that I know of," she answered. "We're pretty short on boats, and everything we've got left is going to search and rescue, private vessels included."

"What are the odds of a police boat heading for Sootopolis sometime today?"

"Couldn't tell you yet." Jenny closed her laptop. "But I'll talk to my staff at the waterfront and see what I can do. It might take a while, but I'll find a way to get you to Sootopolis safely."

Maxie muttered something to himself, which made Lance look to him and Shelly.

"You heard the plan, you two. We're shipping out the first chance we get. Be prepared to leave at the drop of a hat."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Ash stormed out of the Space Center and down the front steps, coming to a halt at their base before whirling, standing rigid in the sunlight. A minute later, Lance appeared through the glass front doors, and his expression set when he saw Ash waiting for him. He paused for only a fraction of a second before sweeping down the steps; Ash barred his way when he reached the bottom.

"I have to go with you, Lance."

"Ash, this conversation is over. I'm really sorry, but that's all there is to it."

He tried skirting around Ash, but the boy lunged sideways, blocking his way.

"Why can't I go? I have to find Pikachu."

"Pikachu's not in Sootopolis City, Ash. I can promise that."

"But _something _is! You're trying to find a way to stop Groudon and Kyogre, right? So why can't I go too? Pikachu's with Groudon—"

"Ash," Lance said sharply, "neither you nor I have any idea where Pikachu is. I can't bring kids along with me on a mission, and that's final."

"You let us help out on Monsu Island!"

"Because I had no other options." Lance looked exasperated. "Ash—I admire your courage. I really do. But there's nothing you can do in Sootopolis City that will help Pikachu in any way."

"You don't understand. Pikachu is my best friend. I haven't seen it since the day before yesterday; it's probably really worried, and scared, and I never even should have—"

"Ash, I do understand," Lance interrupted. "I'm a trainer too. But..." He met Ash's defiant gaze, then sighed and shook his head. "Ash, listen to me. This isn't about you; this is a disaster that's affected half of Hoenn. I know you're worried about your friend, but a lot of people are worried about their friends and family, and if something isn't done, it will all get even worse."

"I know, Lance, I just—" He struggled with himself, his gloved fists clenching. "I just want to do something!"

"Ash, there's nothing you can do right now. That's nobody's fault."

"But what about Pikachu?"

"I can't find Pikachu for you, Ash, and you wouldn't find it in Sootopolis. The best thing for you to do is to stay safe here."

"But..."

Lance watched Ash try desperately to summon a reason, some logical argument for why he should be allowed to throw himself into the unknown with the adults. Then Lance knelt so that he was eye-to-eye with the young trainer and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Ash, think about it this way: you need to have more faith in Pikachu."

Ash blinked. "More...faith? What do you mean, Lance?"

"Well, look at it logically," said Lance. "Pikachu's either out there somewhere, or it's gone for good."

"It's not—"

"Ash, let me finish. There's a chance that Pikachu might be gone, and if it is, you'll have to deal with that. It's part of being a trainer. But, if it's alive—if it's out there somewhere—then Pikachu, wherever it is, will know you haven't abandoned it, because of the strength of your friendship. It knows that the only reason you aren't there with it right now is because it's impossible for you to be, and that you'll keep looking for it and never quit, no matter what. Right?"

"I guess so," Ash said reluctantly. "I mean, if it was the other way around...I'd never think Pikachu would give up on me." His tone hardened. "But it's _not_ the other way around. I'm Pikachu's trainer, and being a trainer means you're responsible for all of your Pokémon, no matter what."

"That's true, Ash. But right now, there's nothing you can do for Pikachu. Going to Sootopolis won't help."

He straightened up, tossing his cape over his shoulder.

"I have to go, Ash," he said, "but I promise you that I'll let you know if I learn anything at all about Pikachu. All right?"

With that, he set off down the street. Ash looked like he was debating whether to follow him, but when Lance summoned Dragonite and took to the sky, all Ash could do was watch him disappear behind the rooftops. He glanced back at the Space Center, then turned and made not for its front doors, but for the great white boulder to the left of its entrance, covered in pictures and descriptions of missing people and Pokémon. These rustled in the light wind as he approached, like an agitated flock of birds.

A woman was standing by the wishing-rock, leaning against the low railing, her head bowed in thought. Ash had not noticed her before, and it was not until she looked up that he recognized her as the leader of Team Aqua. For a brief moment, they met each other's gaze, but in the next they had both looked away. She ignored him as he stepped up to the railing, peering over it and pulling his cap lower over his eyes to block out the morning sun.

Almost nothing could be seen of the white stone beneath the layers of posters and prayers, but in a few places the glittering rock peeked through. Ash slipped his hand underneath a black-and-white picture of a missing girl, so that his fingertips found the cool stone beneath. He closed his eyes.

"Pikachu...Hang in there, buddy," he whispered, touching the rock as gently as though it were a slumbering beast. "I'm gonna come find you. I promise."

He stood there for a second with his hand on the wishing-rock, then pulled away. Shelly watched him head back up the steps and into the Space Center, following behind a policeman. When he was gone, she stopped leaning against the railing and looked down at the wishing-rock, at the names and faces of men and woman and children and Pokémon who might never be seen by their loved ones again.

The urge to wish on the stone came over her. Though she knew it was pointless, Shelly sighed, closed her eyes, and did as the boy had done, sliding a hand beneath a sheet of paper taped to the rock.

She thought first of Matt and the others in Lilycove, and willed with all her might that they had survived the disaster there. She thought then of all the rest, the ones who had set off with Team Magma for Lilycove, but who were doubtless elsewhere by now; wherever they had gone, she hoped at least they were safe.

Her last thought was blasphemous. After all, he was the reason this rock was covered with names and faces in the first place. Then again, Shelly knew that she herself was just as much to blame. Perhaps that made it all right.

_Wherever you are now, Archie—be at peace._


	7. Chapter 7

Archie awoke slowly.

For a long time—or perhaps no time at all—all was formless darkness. Gradually, however, the faint echoes of other sensations began to register in the void, and when he eventually regained consciousness it came in the form of a jumble of impressions: cold water and wet fabric, light wind and hot sun, something solid yet gritty and moist at his back.

At last Archie opened his eyes. The resulting blaze of light and color hurt to perceive, but he forced himself to do it anyway, squinting up at the clear sky as his eyes adjusted to the world. He was thirsty, very thirsty, and the smell and taste of salt filled his nose and mouth as he summoned every ounce of effort to pull himself into a sitting position.

He was lying on a beach. The tide was high, and once in a while a wave reached far enough up the shore to swirl gently around him. Judging by the sun, it was between ten and eleven o'clock. Archie took a long time to gather the strength to stagger to his feet and examine his surroundings.

A storm had passed through, that much was obvious. The row of palm trees that lined the shore beyond the sand bore fresh wounds; though still standing, many of them now leaned this way and that, resting on what looked like massive piles of twigs—in fact their tangled root systems, the sand blasted away from them by the wind and rain. A few of the younger trees had been knocked over completely and lay broken, surrounded by fronds they had snapped from their neighbors when they fell. The shoreline, too, was cluttered with debris. Tangles of purplish-red seaweed, dried and caked with salt, lay stinking in the sun like piles of refuse; bits of driftwood rolled languidly in the shallows, teased up and down by the lapping waves. In places the damp sand glittered with faint reds and blues as the translucent remains of dead Tentacool reflected the light. Archie would have expected to see Wingull picking at these, searching for some nourishment in the slimy corpses, but there was not a single living thing to be seen. Or heard, for that matter. The only sounds that reached Archie as he gazed down the beach were the rush of the waves, and the wind sighing through the tattered palms. He was alone.

Archie sat. Or rather, he half-fell, catching himself with the heels of his hands as his knees buckled and his ass hit the hot sand. Dizziness made his head lurch. He tucked his legs up against his chest and closed his eyes, resting his forehead on his knees, waiting for the world to stop wheeling. He was still thirsty, painfully so, and when he set his jaw he tasted salt and heard the crunch of grit between his teeth.

He did not know how long he sat there. The wind off the sea would have chilled him in his wet clothes had the sun been less strong, but it was not long before the back of his neck began to prickle. When the heat at last became too uncomfortable to bear, he raised his head and gazed out blearily across the sparkling water. Then he staggered to his feet again.

To another observer, the sea stretching as far as the eye could see might have been nothing more than a beautiful but enigmatic plane of glittering turquoise. Archie, however, had been reading waves before he could even read books, and the hues and textures he saw now told him more than they would have most people. One particular patch of smooth green water up the beach interested him greatly, and after considering it for a few moments, Archie dusted the sand off of his hands on the torn knees of his suit and began, clumsily, to walk.

He had no idea where he was. This conviction grew firmer as Archie staggered downshore; his mind was beginning to recover from its torpor as he trudged along, his squelching shoes leaving a trail in the wet sand. Every step cleared his head a little more, bewilderment replacing his numbness.

This was definitely not Monsu Island. A glance to his left confirmed that—the island rose sharply and then seemed to plateau in a way that volcanic Monsu did not. But knowing where he was not gave Archie no comfort. And more worrisome even than that was the fact that he had no idea how he'd come to be here. It was like walking in a dream, except it very much was _not_ a dream at all: the sun blazed and his body ached and hunger clawed at his empty belly like an animal. Yet there was nothing in his mind that told him why he was now alone on this desolate beach, dragging himself forward.

The last thing he remembered—he concentrated very hard on it now—was sitting in his office, thinking about Monsu Island. They were due to arrive there in the early afternoon, for...yes, that was it. Team Magma. They were going to exchange their captured Pokémon, at least in theory; in reality he had no intention of handing Groudon over to Team Magma, and knew Maxie felt the same about Kyogre. But it wouldn't even come to that, if the plan went through. Shelly hadn't made radio contact in two days, which Archie took to be a sign that she'd successfully infiltrated the Magmas; there was no way that pompous fool Maxie would have been able to resist contacting them and bragging if she'd been discovered. Of course, the idiots _he'd_ sent over had been caught right away. Not that Maxie needed to know that just yet...

Archie stopped walking, frowned, and pressed the knuckles of one hand against his temple, as though his memory could be jarred by the application of physical force. _What had happened?_ Monsu Island...Groudon and Kyogre...These things seemed to have significance. The idea of them resonated faintly inside his brain, as though they had been elements of a dream he'd had. But what did it mean? Where _was _he? And for that matter, where the hell was everyone else?

Instinctively Archie looked over to his right, out across the water, half-expecting to see a submarine anchored in the distance. But the ocean, though beautiful, was empty. Furthermore, he could distinguish a thin, broken white line of foam not too far offshore that indicated the presence of something that would prevent any submarine from approaching in the first place: a reef, perhaps, or more likely an underwater shelf of jagged rock. Whatever it was, it looked enough to keep even fishing boats away. Archie stared at it grimly, then resumed walking.

After a quarter of an hour, he halted. The green portion of the sea that he had noticed from afar was now directly to his right, and Archie consequently turned left, heading toward the line of damaged palms. When he passed through these, he saw what he had been hoping for.

A wide, rock-bottomed pool twenty feet across opened before him, plants growing thickly right up to its edge. He could not tell exactly how deep it was—the clarity of the water was deceptive—but it seemed to be at least fifteen feet. In two places near the bottom he could make out the mouths of tunnels, only large enough for a child to squirm through, one leading to the sea and one leading further up the island.

Archie mustered the energy to scramble towards the pool and knelt beside it, the overgrowth scratching through his suit. He rinsed his hands in the cold, clear water before tasting it experimentally. As he'd expected, it was fresh.

When he had gulped down enough to slake his thirst, he pulled off his bandana and soaked it, mopping his face and neck before tying it back around his forehead. Droplets trickled down his temples, into his sandy beard, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and watched the ripples he'd made fan out across the surface of the river—for a river it was, though it appeared still and silent. Somewhere further inland, he knew, a spring was welling up from a deep aquifer, and the resulting stream had carved itself an underground path to the sea, invisible except in those few places, like here, where it happened to break the surface and form pools on its way along. Such underground rivers were not uncommon in eastern Hoenn, and many along the mainland were much larger than this one. Archie had explored plenty of them in his time, diving against the current through labyrinthine chains of dark caverns that sometimes wound inland for miles. Doubtless if he hiked upland, he would run across at least one more spot like this, where the river peeked above ground.

He drank more, then pulled off his shirt and set it aside, splashing water over his head, trying to remove some of the sand and grit he'd picked up on the beach. He was not wholly successful, but he did feel a little cleaner afterwards, and took off his bandana for a moment to run his fingers through his short, dark, wet hair. Then he clambered back to his feet, retrieved his shirt, and removed himself to the nearest palm tree, flopping down under its shade and sitting with his bare back to it, looking out towards the rolling sea. He was still hungry, but less so than before. Knowing a source of fresh water eased the pressure to find something to eat. He could manage without food for a little while—a few days, if it came down to that—but water was life.

No, the question that troubled Archie most now was how this situation had come about. His mind was still a blank on the subject, except for the frustrating feeling that _something _of consequence had happened in connection with the negotiations on Monsu Island.

Briefly, Archie considered the possibility that Team Magma had pulled some unforeseeable stunt, overwhelmed them all, and then marooned him here as revenge. But that made no sense—it wasn't Maxie's style. In any case, it seemed to Archie that he'd simply been thrown up onto the beach by the ocean, not deliberately left there by someone, Team Magma or otherwise.

Maybe the sub had wrecked on the way to Monsu Island? But the weather had been excellent, as far as he could remember. And when he thought about it hard enough, he got the impression that, though he could not recall any details, they had in fact arrived at Monsu as planned. So then nothing had gone wrong on the way.

Archie closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the palm trunk, which itched against his skin. What had happened? What on earth could possibly have happened?

_Archie, sir, I have word that Kyogre has been released to the sea._

He started. His eyes snapped open, but there was nothing to look at; the words had been inside his head, ringing clearly through his foggy brain like a single stray sentence suddenly overheard in a crowded room. _Kyogre has been released to the sea..._It was Shelly's voice. So her mission had been successful, she'd freed Kyogre from Team Magma's ship. But then...

This raised a dozen questions. How had Team Magma dealt with losing Kyogre? Had they still rendezvoused at Monsu Island? Had the Red Orb worked as predicted? Surely he'd tested it, if Kyogre had been awoken and freed. He had been dreaming of that opportunity for years. But where _was _Kyogre, then? Perhaps it had fled? But that did nothing to explain why Archie himself was here now. Team Magma had not put him here, the sub had not been wrecked, and evidently, Shelly had managed to free Kyogre—though where she and the rest of them were now was a mystery.

Something was missing, Archie realized—some crucial piece of the puzzle. If he could only _remember..._

He sat there for a good ten minutes, straining his mind, once in a while pressing his fist against his temple. _Kyogre has been released to the sea..._Monsu Island...Team Magma...

They had gone to Monsu Island, and Team Magma had been there. He began to suspect it with certainty. Maxie loved to stand on ceremony; he would have shown up for the meeting even if he didn't have a single card left to play, which would have been the case if Kyogre had been freed. So maybe something had happened there, on the island?

Archie concentrated very hard on the idea of Maxie, and was rewarded for this unpleasant experience with another flash of sound.

_Look, Archie, you know as well as I do that the Groudon means absolutely nothing to you or your organization. So why don't you hand it over?_

Archie laughed aloud. His rough voice sounded harsh in the silence, though there was no one around to hear it.

Of course. Of course Maxie would have tried to get him to give up Groudon that easily, without a fight, as if in a fit of generosity Archie would hand his enemies their ultimate weapon. Maxie was a fool, and always had been. That was what came of putting on as many airs as he did. Surely Maxie hadn't really expected him to comply? No, no. It had been a last act of desperation, that was all. Archie dearly wished he could remember the look on Maxie's face as he'd said it.

Archie shifted position slightly to stay in the shade and watched the distant waves, resting one arm on his bent knee. At least he had some idea now of what had happened...was it yesterday, or the day before? He had no way of knowing, but it couldn't have been earlier than that; his body didn't feel as if he'd been without sustenance for days. Archie grimaced and rubbed the back of his hand against his bearded chin. That one puzzle piece still lay out of reach. Kyogre had been freed, Team Magma had come to Monsu Island, _something, _and then—he'd wound up here, apparently alone. That unknown _something _began to unnerve him. It could not have been something good.

The sun climbed higher as Archie mused fruitlessly. Eventually, his nagging hunger began to interfere with his concentration, and he got to his feet, pulling on his torn and dirty shirt and then trooping back to the pool for another drink. He splashed his face with water and wiped it out of his eyes, then looked upland.

As he'd noticed earlier, the ground rose sharply not far inland, but then leveled off, leaving the shoreline like a sunken ring around the plateau that seemed to constitute the island. Not that he could tell yet how big the whole island was, but he supposed it was not even a mile across; the east was littered with many such uninhabited little scraps of land. When Archie craned his head back, shielding his eyes against the sun, he noticed a large cloud perched overhead, further inland. There was nothing strictly unusual about that. Single clouds tended to form over these throwaway islands, and spotting one out at sea was often as good as a waving flag in indicating the presence of nearby land. But circumstances made Archie oddly suspicious of the white clump sitting in the sky. He felt that it, like the rest of the island—and his own mind—was hiding something from him.

He set off, passing by the freshwater pool and trying to maintain a straight course along what he guessed was the underground river's path. It was slow going. A few scattered trees provided relief from the sun at intervals, but it burned hot on the back of his neck as he tromped through knee-high tangles of grass, vines, and weeds, trying not to trip in depressions he could not see until he put his foot in them. At last he reached the short, sharp cliffs and halted. The top only looked twenty feet up from where he stood, but it might as well have been fifty. At full strength he would have readily ventured to climb it bare-handed, but knew it was best not to try now, in case he lost his footing. Still, there had to be a way up.

Archie took note of his position and explored to the right, keeping the cliff face on his left, looking for a place where he might more easily make the climb. He got lucky quite soon. After only a minute's walk, he found a section of the cliff that had been cut away, sloping inward like a ramp, and when Archie yanked away a handful of enshrouding foliage, he discovered the 'ramp' was a flight of broad stairs carved into the rock. Time and nature had taken their toll on the crumbling steps, but nevertheless Archie set about clearing a pathway up them, uprooting handfuls of plants and tossing them aside. When at long last he reached the top of the stairs, he sat down and closed his eyes, waiting for a dizzy spell to pass. Then he made for the trees.

This upper layer of the island bore the marks of a civilization long gone. The left side of what looked to be a square half-mile of flat ground had been overrun with berry trees growing unusually close together, like an orchard that had gone wild, and it was to these he went at once. To the right—or rather, behind him now—hunched a small cave, its dark entrance carved like a lintel, perhaps a former shrine. There was something else, too, over in the middle of the island, something big that Archie could not see clearly through the trees. It looked like a structure, though. Perhaps a temple? He would go see in a bit.

Archie paused, standing on a tree root, and took stock of the fruit hanging above him. Most of the berries were not in season, and some were fit only for Pokémon, but there were a few promising morsels in sight. It took him a couple of tries, but at last he managed to knock a fat iapapa berry off of a low-hanging branch and wiped it off before taking a bite.

Being unripe, it was a little hard, but also not nearly as sour as it would eventually become. Archie devoured it, the juice trickling into his beard, not even bothering to spit out the small seeds. When he had finished, he ate another one, and then found a tree of wiki berries a few yards away, peeling a handful of the small, lumpy fruit and eating them while sitting with his back to the trunk. It was not until the edge had been taken off of his hunger that something he had subconsciously noticed began to trouble him.

There was no sign of life anywhere. It had been strange enough down at the beach, but here, in this grove of berry trees, there ought to have been half-eaten fruit and scratch marks on the bark and a dozen other signs that Pokémon who lived on the island came here to feed. Why wouldn't they? Yet the trees seemed undisturbed; some of the species of berry that had ripened earlier in the season sat rotting on the branches, untouched by tooth or beak. It bothered Archie in a way he couldn't articulate to himself. He had never seen anything like it, not even at haunted Mt. Pyre.

Archie dug his fingernails into a pinap berry, peeling away and discarding the yellow skin before chewing the slightly spicy inner flesh with relish. He shifted position against the tree, scratching with his free hand at a spot where some sand in his shirt itched his shoulder. Well, he had food now, that was one big problem solved. Food and water were the important things. Shelter wasn't strictly necessary, given how warm the nights were this time of year. He would only have to worry about it if a storm came through, and in that event, the cave he'd seen would doubtless suffice.

Storm...

A storm...

Archie stopped eating. Something about this idea struck him, and he seized upon it, concentrating with all his might. It dredged up an odd sensation in his gut, like the echo of some powerful, primal feeling. What was it, though? He closed his eyes, frowning, his brow furrowed. It all had something to do with a storm...

_Kyogre, sink the land into the sea!_

Archie opened his eyes again, staring unseeingly up at the sky through a latticework of branches. A torrent of memories washed over him, as though a dam holding them back this whole time had burst, but they were fragmented, disorienting: crashing thunder and blinding lightning, the howl of wind and waves, the world cowering before the unholy storm he had willed into being through Kyogre. And the Red Orb...He remembered clutching it, the subtle warmth of it in his palm, the way its inner depths had glowed imperceptibly. In Kyogre's presence it had acquired a hypnotic quality that it had not possessed while lying dormant.

As Archie sifted through his disjointed memories, a weight settled in his stomach. The missing puzzle piece, he realized, was himself. He had used the Red Orb to control Kyogre, and it had worked—it had worked!—but it had done something to him, too. He could not explain what, exactly, but his memories were of raw emotion, joy and rage and a wild thrill of power like nothing he had ever known in his life. It was as if the Red Orb had pulled dark things from the depths of his soul and amplified them a hundred thousand times.

It had been a storm to end all storms. And though he could not recall exactly how, Archie knew too that Groudon had awoken and escaped its confinement. He remembered the world bleached white as its power fought to dispel the storm, remembered the deafening roar when Monsu Island's volcano erupted at its bidding. He and Kyogre had fought it, surely, but how the battle had ended, Archie could not say. He had survived, but had Kyogre been bested? Was that why it was gone? What had happened to the Red Orb?

These questions, however, were secondary. Despite the warmth of the day, Archie shuddered. The fact that he could not string his memories together into a perfect chain of causation did not alter their overwhelming violence: the monstrous hurricane, the volcano spewing brimstone, the earth trembling in honor of Groudon, Kyogre forming a fifty-foot wave—on his command—to engulf the whole of Monsu Island...

Even though Archie still did not understand how he had managed to wind up here, he understood, at least, why he was here alone. Everyone else was dead.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The sunset was redder and more beautiful than any Archie had ever seen. He had found a nice vantage point from which to watch it; a few minutes' walk from his water supply, the cliffs that ringed the island jutted right up against the beach, and a wide ledge halfway up them turned out to be accessible without much difficulty. Archie had scrambled up to it and eaten dinner there on the sparse grass, tossing rinds into the sand below, and now perched on the rim of the ledge, his legs dangling, watching the extremities of the fiery sky deepen to purple. He was not sure yet where he would sleep, but it did not seem to matter. There was nothing alive on the island to bother him.

Archie rested his hands on his knees and thought. He had been trying not to think all day, with little success, and could not stop himself now that there was nothing to distract him, no banal task to consume his attention.

The enormity of his situation had taken a while to sink in, but had at last done so. Archie was a pragmatic man, not inclined to grasp at straws or hold out for miracles, but he had nevertheless spent the past few hours trying to imagine ways for it all to be untrue, trying to draw an alternate conclusion from his shattered fragments of memory. Nothing he conjured made sense, though. Even if anyone had survived the clash between Kyogre and Groudon, Monsu Island itself had surely been destroyed by fire and water, and how—and where—could anyone have fled?

Archie tried to mentally count how many people had been there, on the island, but gave up after a minute. He did not know how many Team Magma members had been present, as he hadn't been paying attention to any of them, barring Maxie. But it was strange to think that even he was gone. Archie had wanted to lord it over the arrogant bastard once Team Aqua finally came out on top; he had never envisioned killing him, or massacring his whole organization. How could he gloat to a dead man? Yet that was his only choice now. And, jarring as that was, it was still more comprehensible to him than the loss of the others, his own team, of Shelly...

She had deserved her fate the least. Not that any of them had deserved what had happened to them, but Shelly had been his right hand, as faithful and trustworthy a lieutenant as Archie could ever have wished for, and it was her face that kept coming back to him as he brooded in the growing darkness. The fact that he was not certain how she had perished, whether she'd drowned or died some other death, did not distance Archie, in his mind, from what he had done. He had murdered her as plainly as if he'd snapped her slender neck with his bare hands.

The thought made him feel sick. It was beyond all reason, beyond anything he had ever imagined; no version of the dream he'd been dreaming for years had involved that. Archie could not blame it on the Red Orb, even though part of him wanted to. It had not taken over him, he felt, so much as magnify something within him that was already there until it engulfed everything else, every single other facet of his mind and soul. He had genuinely _wanted _Kyogre to sink the island.

Archie tugged off his bandana and held it in his lap, running a thumb along the Team Aqua insignia that he had designed himself, years ago. He had wanted to find the legendary Kyogre, to do what was the dream of every man who had ever sailed: tame the mighty ocean...Well, he had not tamed it, but in a distorted way, he had achieved victory. Team Magma was no more, and here he was, surrounded on all sides by unbroken water, left alive on what was, for all he knew, the last bit of dry land remaining in Hoenn.

Archie crumpled his bandana into a ball and stared silently at the horizon as stars awoke overhead. He did not look like a castaway as he sat there in the twilight, his broad shoulders slumped, watching the last of the sun melt into the sea. He looked, somehow, like a lonely king: sitting on the steps of his palace, gazing out at his vast, empty realm, holding his crown in his hands.


	8. Chapter 8

"Boss? We got a bone to pick with you."

Maxie had been absorbed in thought ever since the end of the strategy meeting, gazing at the scuffed linoleum floor of the Space Center, elbows on his knees and his chin resting on his interlaced fingers. Now he looked up to find three grunts standing before his chair, their hoods tossed back: a long-haired young woman, a heavyset young man, and another young man with tousled sandy hair, who had spoken. The sandy-haired one had stuffed his gloveless hands into the pockets of his uniform pants and jutted his chin, trying to look confident, but the slouch in the rest of his posture ruined the effect. Behind him, the other two seemed equal parts resolute and nervous. The young woman was coiling a strand of her long dark hair around her finger.

Maxie sat up straighter and lowered his hands, looking to the three of them in turn, his brow furrowing.

"I beg your pardon?"

The grunts exchanged glances. The slouching one in front straightened a bit.

"We got a bone to pick with you, boss," he said again, more firmly. "How come you're ditchin' everybody, huh?"

It took Maxie a second to realize what he meant.

"I am not...'ditching' anyone," he said. "I am going to look for more information about Kyogre and Groudon in Sootopolis City. But how did you know?"

"Team Aqua told us," said the girl. She extracted her finger from her tightly-wound hair with some difficulty. "Boss, you can't just up and leave. It's not fair. What are all of us supposed to do without you and Commander Tabitha around?"

"Commander Tabitha will remain here. I am leaving him in charge."

"That's not what he said."

Maxie frowned; the lines around his mouth deepened.

"Well, there has been a misunderstanding, then...But naturally..." He stopped himself, then stifled a sigh. "Hm. Well, I will be the first to admit that this Sootopolis venture is a stab in the dark. I do not know what, if anything, I will be able to accomplish there."

"Boss, why can't the whole team go?" the heavyset young man asked. "To find the Cave of Origin, I mean. We've been looking for it forever."

"I'm afraid that's out of the question. You must understand, even Commander Shelly and I are merely tagging along, as it were. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but the matter is not in my hands."

"But when are you leavin', boss?" asked the first grunt, taking his hands out of his pockets. "And when're you gonna come back? You gotta tell us that much."

"I have no answers, unfortunately. I know we are leaving as soon as possible, but when that will be...Well."

He suppressed another sigh. Snatches of conversation from around the lobby flitted through the silence.

"I'm sorry," said Maxie at last, not making eye contact with them. "I know nothing anymore. I can give you no direction other than to continue your assigned duties here; Tabitha will have full command in my absence. That is all I can say."

The three clearly did not find this answer satisfying, but did not have the opportunity to put forth another argument—at that moment, Tabitha stormed up, looking thoroughly displeased. He was running his knuckles along his jaw, dark with itchy stubble, and had half a bagel clutched in the other hand.

"What are you all doing?" he demanded of the grunts. To Maxie, he added, "Sir, are these three bothering you?"

"It's all right, Tabitha. I was simply...explaining things."

Tabitha guessed the nature of the conversation right away.

"It's not your business to question Maxie's decisions, you three," he said. "If Sootopolis is where the Cave of Origin might be, then that's the next step for us. Maxie and I don't have room to take the whole team along."

"But, commander..."

"No _buts, _Sierra_. _You three get back to the supply room, your shift doesn't end till noon."

The grunts skulked away, Sierra and Stanley saluting before they did so. Tabitha rubbed his developing mustache as he watched them make for their posts.

"Derek should be able to handle everything here fine," he said aloud. He sounded like he was trying to reassure himself of this. "He's a good guy. Reliable. And if anybody was going to quit on us, they would've done it yesterday—or the day before."

Maxie frowned deeper. He had been trying to think of a way to make this moment less unpleasant, but now there seemed no way around it, and he tried to muster some semblance of self-assurance as he gathered his thoughts. Tabitha did not seem to sense his boss's mood. He still looked preoccupied with the question of whether Derek was up to the job of supervising the team, and darkly surveyed the bustling lobby, munching a few perfunctory bites of bagel before stuffing the rest in his pocket.

"Tabitha, I am afraid you're mistaken."

This pronouncement made Tabitha turn to Maxie, looking puzzled.

"Mistaken about what, sir?"

"You are staying here." Maxie said this tiredly, but plainly, as if it required no justification. Then, when a beat of silence answered him, he clarified, "I am going to Sootopolis alone. Well, not unaccompanied, naturally, but alone from among our team. I'm sorry if you assumed otherwise."

It seemed to take Tabitha a second to process what he'd heard.

"Sir...You don't want me to go with you?"

"I don't know what I want anymore, Tabitha, but I..." Maxie trailed off, running a hand through his red hair. It felt disgusting; he had been able to do nothing better than rinse it under a sink that morning. "Well, I would feel more confident if you were here to oversee things. And frankly, there's no need for you or the rest of the team to take any unnecessary risks. You've made yourselves useful here, and furthermore, it's safe. As safe as anywhere in Hoenn can be now, at any rate. That is not something to throw away lightly."

"I don't care about being safe," said Tabitha at once. "Maxie—I'm field commander. This is my job. If anything, you should stay here and I should go on the expedition."

"For what reason?"

"Water travel's a crapshoot with Kyogre on the loose. What if something happens on the way to Sootopolis? I don't want to wind up in Commander Shelly's position."

"Commander Shelly is conducting herself admirably, all things considered."

Tabitha ignored this.

"Maxie, sir, I can't stay behind while you go off and put yourself in danger. It's not right."

"I don't think 'right' is something we can reasonably concern ourselves with at this point."

"But I want to go." Tabitha began to sound angry. "Maxie, please. I'm not a quitter. Not like Courtney."

So that was it. Maxie stifled another sigh, rubbing the back of his neck, where the high collar of his dirty coat irritated his equally dirty skin.

"I'm afraid it's no use being angry at Courtney. Her decision was entirely practical."

"She deserted us. They all did."

"There is nothing to desert, Tabitha. I hardly know what I'm doing anymore."

"You're going to Sootopolis City, sir. And I'm going to go with you."

Maxie studied Tabitha's expression of guarded defiance. He had never seen it before.

"Tabitha, please don't be difficult. I value your support, but you would be of more use here than in Sootopolis. The best thing you can do is continue performing your duties effectively. And in any case—"

"I deserve to go."

Maxie blinked. He could not remember Tabitha ever interrupting him before, and the novelty of the experience silenced him. Tabitha rubbed his bristly chin with the back of his hand, almost scowling; the shadow of his hood over his face made his expression look even darker.

"Maxie, sir, I deserve to look for the Cave of Origin too. I've looked for it all over Hoenn."

This again. Why didn't any of them understand?

"That may be so, Tabitha, but there is no good reason for you to come now. The burden falls on me to go to Sootopolis and look for answers. I started this; I must end it."

"This isn't just about you, sir," Tabitha said stubbornly. "Team Magma is my life. I've done everything I could to make our mission happen, and I have the right to see it through to the end, no matter what the end turns out to be. You can't expect me to just sit here and wait for you to get back."

"That is exactly what I expect of you, Tabitha."

Tabitha's defiant expression did not soften, and it made Maxie realize (with a pang of something like fear) just how tenuous the threads holding together his organization had become over the last forty-eight hours. Tabitha had questioned orders before, but never disobeyed them, and certainly never put up as much outright resistance as this. Then again, Maxie had never before ordered his dedicated field commander to stay behind while he, the boss, went off on a mission.

"Tabitha, you must try to understand...Everything that has happened is my fault. I cannot ask you or anyone else to act on my behalf any longer."

"How is everything your fault, Maxie?" Tabitha demanded. "You didn't make Groudon and Kyogre go nuts on purpose. If that's your fault somehow, then it's my fault too. It's the whole team's fault. And you wouldn't have gotten anywhere with Team Magma without—"

"Please don't argue with me."

"But you aren't making any sense. I've been keeping everyone under control here so that they wouldn't fall apart when we figured out what the next step was, I can't just—"

"You're being childish, Tabitha," said Maxie shortly, "and I will thank you to stop making this situation more difficult than it already is. You will remain here in Mossdeep and continue your assigned duties until I return from Sootopolis. Furthermore," he added, when Tabitha looked ready to interrupt again, "I absolve you—and everyone else—of any responsibility to Team Magma should something unfortunate occur to me while I am away. In such an event, you are to disband the team immediately. Do you understand?"

Ambient noise from across the lobby heightened the tense silence. Tabitha's expression was muted, unreadable; it unnerved Maxie more than the anger had.

"Tabitha, do you understand?" Maxie repeated, the disapproval in his voice sharper. Tabitha took a deep breath through his nose.

"Yes, sir. Orders understood."

"Very good." Maxie looked away and added, "You are dismissed."

Tabitha saluted stiffly and stalked away, his horned hood soon lost to sight in the crowd. Maxie frowned at the floor and rubbed his temples, wondering how it had come to this.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

There was not a ship to be had right away for love or money. Officer Jenny tried to pull strings, but water transportation resources were so stretched that there were few strings to pull, and it was only in another hour that word at last reached the Space Center of an emergency supply boat on its way to Sootopolis from Ever Grande City, due to stop off at Mossdeep Island in the early evening—weather permitting, since Kyogre's vicious storm still raged east of Izabe. It was on this ship that the expedition pinned its slender hopes.

Though Lance had disappeared right after the meeting, his friend Steven remained at the Space Center, and relayed the message to Maxie and Shelly, adding that he would be driving down to the waterfront at six, and would be taking them along (only, he emphasized, as a favor to Lance). It was up to them to be ready when the time came, but this was not a tall order. Neither of them had anything to pack.

Shelly broke the news of her departure to Brooke immediately. To her relief, Brooke accepted it with less complaint than Shelly had anticipated.

"Not that I don't want you to come, Brooke," Shelly told her, "but I had to convince them to let me go in the first place. And you need to keep trying to get ahold of Commander Matt. I don't think I'll have the chance while I'm gone."

"I understand, commander," Brooke said. "I'll keep trying to contact base every day until I hear something back, or...see something about it on TV."

They shared a silence. Brooke, on impulse, pulled a Pokéball out of her pocket.

"Commander Shelly, do you want to take Crawdaunt with you? I still have one of the team's."

"Thank you, but no. It would just be one more thing to worry about. Keep it here with you, just in case."

"In case of what?"

Shelly shook her head.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

A palpable sense of anxiety built among Team Magma over the course of the long, busy afternoon. Craig, Sierra, and Stanley were not the only ones who felt alarmed by Maxie's impending departure; there was a general sentiment among the grunts that because they had remained loyal after the disaster at Monsu Island, Maxie owed it to them to not go gallivanting off to Sootopolis without any idea of when he would return. They were only just beginning to get adjusted to the new turn their lives had taken, and losing the boss for an indefinite amount of time was not an inviting prospect. After Craig, Sierra, and Stanley, however, no one had the nerve to confront Maxie directly. For one thing, he seemed as distracted as any of the grunts, and spent the afternoon in the back of the lobby, thinking and pacing. For another, Commander Tabitha was in a foul mood; it was obvious that bypassing him and talking to the boss directly would not be met with well.

Around three o'clock, Tabitha disappeared. No one saw him leave the building, but everyone noticed his absence, and three different people had to press Derek (the closest thing Tabitha had to a friend) before he admitted that Tabitha had not left the Space Center, and was in fact "talking to someone." Where this conversation was happening, and who it was happening with, remained a mystery.

When Tabitha finally reappeared in the lobby, he took Derek aside and talked to him in a low voice for a while, then set about supervising the supply line with the same curt tenacity as before, refusing to answer any questions. Still, it did not take much guessing to work out the situation. Once the day finally began to straddle the line between afternoon and evening, Tabitha organized a general break and gathered Team Magma together at the edge of the lobby for, as he put it, "an announcement."

Everyone more or less knew what the announcement was going to be, but that did not stop Tabitha from insisting on discipline, and the two dozen people who now constituted the team arranged themselves into what looked like a parody of a normal roll call. Nobody had their whole uniform anymore. People had swapped, salvaged, and stolen clothes over the past day and a half, and the only thing the ragtag group still had in common were their hooded overshirts. These, however, were each uniquely stained, giving the grunts the look of a row of spotted Spinda. Contrary to protocol, most people had thrown their hoods back, including Tabitha, who paced back and forth in front of the line. He, at least, still had his full uniform, though his gloves were sticking out of his pocket, and he looked less intimidating than usual because of the unkempt stubble covering his lower face and neck. All of the male grunts shared this, but none seemed as bothered by it as their commander.

Tabitha had to force himself not to scratch his chin when he stopped pacing and turned to face his troops—if one could apply such a generous word to those assembled. His Mightyena sat on its haunches behind him, surveying the grunts with disdain, occasionally flicking its ears.

"Listen up, all of you," he said. "I'm sure you've all heard by now that Maxie's leaving for Sootopolis City to go look for the Cave of Origin. Well, I'm going with him."

No one seemed taken aback by this, but a murmur rippled through the ranks nonetheless.

"Derek will be in charge," Tabitha continued, and Derek, standing near the end of the row, straightened as attention turned to him. "Maxie and I going to stay in touch, but don't be surprised if you don't hear from us for a few days. Keep your heads down, do what you're told, and don't cause any trouble. I don't want to have to deal with any bullshit when we get back, you got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Can't hear you."

"Yes _sir!"_

The response sounded forced, but the effect was still heartening. Tabitha allowed himself to scratch his neck, then said, "This is a temporary situation. Don't think you can get away with breaking orders just because Maxie and I aren't around. I know everything seems different now, but we've still got a mission to accomplish, and we're going to accomplish it, no matter what. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good." Tabitha gave the grunts one last long, sweeping look, his stony gaze lingering on those he considered least reliable. "In that case, team dismissed. Everybody back to your stations."

Everyone saluted. Out of the corner of his eye, Tabitha noticed several people over in the front of the lobby staring at the team as they dispersed, and he scowled. He did not appreciate the reminder of how pathetic-looking the meaning of his life had become. Bad enough that he did not even have the resources to do the most basic things, like shave and brush his teeth; worse still that there were people around to notice, who would have been intimidated by Team Magma's presence at another time. He tried not to care about how his uniform had begun to smell as he recalled Mightyena to its Pokéball and tucked it into his pocket, turning away.

Maxie was watching him. Tabitha noticed this immediately after he turned around; even though a steady flow of people trickled across the intervening space, Maxie stood out on the other side of the room thanks to his red overcoat, glimpsed between passerby like a flashing light. He was standing rigidly, hands clasped behind his back, his chin elevated; Tabitha could not quite see it from this distance, but knew he was frowning deeply. Probably he had been observing the entire proceedings like that. It was clear that he knew, or deduced, what had been announced.

Knowing there was nothing else for it, Tabitha scratched his chin again, then swept through the crowd and approached Maxie, stopping and saluting as though he had been summoned. He had been right—Maxie was frowning.

"Tabitha, what is the meaning of this?"

"The meaning of what, sir?" Tabitha asked, for the sake of formality.

Maxie squared his shoulders, his scowl intensifying, hands still behind his back. For a moment, despite the battered condition of his coat, despite the fact that Team Magma was in shambles, he was The Boss again.

"I expressly told you that you were to remain in control here during my absence. Am I to take it that you've decided to disobey orders?"

"Yes, sir." Tabitha nodded. "I'm going to Sootopolis City too. I'm leaving Derek in charge."

"Hmph. And I suppose you've already cleared this with the right people?"

"I have, sir."

"So you're prepared to accept the consequences?"

"I am."

Tabitha's tone was even; there was no hint of the anger that should mark open rebellion. Yet rebellion it was, and Maxie felt a spark of frustration, because he knew Tabitha knew that he was bluffing. What consequences? If Tabitha wanted to go to Sootopolis, Maxie could not stop him. He could not demote him, certainly; Maxie did not know any of the grunts well enough to select someone to replace Tabitha, and in any event, he did not want to do so. Tabitha—and perhaps inertia—had kept the team going since Monsu Island, not him. He, Maxie, was a distant presence; it was from Tabitha and Courtney that the grunts had usually received orders, and it was the two admins who had allowed Maxie the freedom to exist apart from some of the daily hassle of running Team Magma. Even now, for the past couple of days, Maxie had hardly exchanged a word with anyone on the team besides Tabitha. Maxie had been able to think, to brood, to torture himself with _what-ifs_, all because Tabitha had been overseeing everything with his usual unwavering efficiency. Truth be told, Maxie had taken that efficiency for granted.

"Well," said Maxie at last, still scowling, "I suppose if you've come to an agreement with the police independently, then I cannot stop you. But I hope you appreciate how detrimental your actions will be to the team."

Tabitha did not argue, nor did he even look like he wanted to. The anger from that morning had been supplanted, it seemed, by the same straightforward determination that he usually applied to his duties. That determination had always acted as an extension of Maxie's own will; to have it set against him now was the ultimate proof of how far things had unraveled. A strange little knot settled in the pit of Maxie's empty stomach—a kind of quiet unease.

"Maxie?"

"Yes, commander?"

Surprise flashed over Tabitha's unshaven face, and not without reason; Maxie himself could not remember the last time he'd addressed Tabitha only by his title.

"Sir, I don't want you to think I'm being..." Tabitha did not finish the sentence, instead saying, "I'm prepared to continue following your orders, sir. I'm not resigning from the team by doing this."

"Well, I'm afraid I have little use for a commander who follows orders only at his own discretion."

Maxie had not meant to say this, but the knot in his stomach had pulled tighter, and he turned away, rubbing at his collar with one hand. Without really seeing any of it, he watched the movement of people and Pokémon down one of the cordoned aisles ten feet away, hurrying to and fro on their own business. The now-familiar feeling of being invisible came over him again.

"Maxie, sir?"

Maxie raised his chin a fraction to indicate he had heard, but did not respond. Behind him, he heard Tabitha shift, his uniform rustling.

"Maxie, the team's going to be all right here."

"Can you guarantee that, commander?"

"No, sir. I can't."

The silence lengthened. Maxie watched an exhausted-looking woman usher her two children towards one of the tables; the youngest child, and the Igglybuff it carried, were both crying.

"Maxie...am I fired?"

The knot in Maxie's stomach told him to say _yes, _but he was not yet thrown so off-balance as to listen to it. He hmphed.

"No, commander. But I am extremely disappointed in you."

Tabitha said nothing. After a moment, Maxie heard him leave.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Steven bent and adjusted the strap of the bulging backpack at his feet, then heaved it over his shoulder; it sounded like it was filled with rocks. He turned to appraise Maxie, Shelly, and Tabitha coolly before jerking his head in the direction of the glass front doors and striding away, backpack rattling. Shelly followed at once. Maxie exhaled through his nose, watching the two of them cut a path through the crowd, then set off as well. He did not so much as glance back at Tabitha, who was left standing on the edge of the lobby, his hood thrown back, frowning.

Behind him, Derek cleared his throat. Tabitha looked to him, his brow furrowing at Derek's nervous expression; Derek seemed to notice, and saluted hastily, as if to make up for it.

"Good luck in Sootopolis City, commander," he said. "I hope you and the boss find something."

Tabitha grimaced.

"Keep it together here, Derek," he said. "Make sure nobody gets out of hand. I'll contact you as soon as possible once Maxie and I get to Sootopolis."

"Yes, sir." He paused. "We'll, uh...We'll all be waiting for you both when you get back."

He did not sound confident of this. Tabitha wasn't either, but he did not let himself show it, and did not even clap Derek on the shoulder before turning and carving a path through the crowd. They parted way for him—or rather, for his uniform. He was a volunteer.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"We're screwed."

Brooke, Sierra, and Stanley shared Craig's grim expression as Steven Stone's sleek car disappeared around a corner, its bumper glinting in the sinking sun. Of the four grunts, Brooke appeared the least glum, though this was not saying much. She rolled her Pokéball containing Crawdaunt back and forth between her gloved palms, biting her lip. Stanley dumped another baggie of Pokémon food pellets into his Golbat's gaping mouth; several pellets rolled away, bouncing down the steps.

Craig fumbled for a cigarette and stuck it between his teeth, muttering "we're screwed" again. Sierra glared at him.

"Stuff it, Craig," she snapped; nerves had shortened her temper. "They said they'll be back, and they'll be back. Commander Tabitha's never lied to us before. Right?"

Craig did not have a light. He muttered a string of curses at this realization, then said, with the cigarette still clamped in his teeth, "Whatever, man. Face it, we're S.O.L.. Team's falling apart for good now."

Stanley looked between them, unsure who to believe. "You really think this is it, Craig?"

"You wanna know what I think?" Craig plucked the useless cigarette from his mouth and stuffed it back into the Team Aqua bandana he still had from the night before last, which he'd tied into a bundle. His tone was conspiratorial. "I think the boss and Commander Tabitha are pulling a Courtney. They said they're lookin' for the Cave of Origin, but what if that's just a story? What if they're getting out while the getting's good and leaving us here for the cops to sort out?"

"That can't be it," Brooke piped up, "or else Commander Shelly wouldn't be going with them. She's not a flake."

"Commander Tabitha's not a flake either," said Sierra. "And neither is the boss."

"Boss doesn't know shit about how to fix all this, he said so himself," Craig argued. "Don't be a dumbass, Sierra. This is it for us."

"Yeah, well, if you're so set on leaving, why don't you run off to your stupid cousin you won't shut up about?"

Craig and Sierra bickered. Brooke and Stanley ignored them, and Stanley shrugged at Brooke in a way that said _this happens all the time. _Brooke looked away, studying a piece of gum stuck to the nearby steps; Stanley stared at the place where Steven's car had vanished, as though perhaps it might suddenly reappear and everything would make sense again. When this did not happen, he let his attention wander freely.

The only other people outside were a group of children sitting on the other end of the long steps; apparently they had watched Steven's car leave too, though for what reason, Stanley could not guess. To his surprise, he recognized them all. It was the four kids from Monsu Island, plus another boy—the one with the Swampert, who had guided them to the city the night before last.


	9. Chapter 9

Tabitha sat up abruptly, almost hitting his head against the side of a crate in the darkness. For a second, the nightmare refused to let go of him, but then he relaxed, remembering where he was and what was happening. He was in the cargo hold of a small supply boat, lying beside Mightyena, the floor swaying gently beneath him. They would arrive in Sootopolis at dawn.

After lying there for a few minutes more, Tabitha found he was too hungry to fall asleep again, and so got to his feet. Mightyena woke when he did so, nuzzling him inquisitively. When he groped his way to the exit, Mightyena followed; together they ascended the stairs, emerging into the warm night on the aft deck. Tabitha threw back his hood, and Mightyena shook out its coarse fur.

The moon was thin and waning, a slice of silver lost high among the stars. Tabitha could not tell exactly what time it was, and had a peculiar feeling that he was still asleep as he stood on the rocking deck beneath the wide, glittering sky, tasting salt in the air. Only the wind and the crew's voices drifting from the front of the boat made him certain this wasn't a dream. But that was no surprise. His life had changed so much, so suddenly, that Tabitha sometimes thought everything he had experienced in the past two days was all one long, bizarre dream, from which he must eventually wake.

There were only a couple of lights here in the stern, and the stars did not let him see much. Earlier he had watched Mossdeep Island disappear into the distance, a glowing mound of yellow and red slipping down past the rim of the world; now there was nothing to look at. Tabitha wandered over to the edge of the deck and peered at the rolling black water below, resting his forearms on the railing. Mightyena followed him, sticking its head between the rails and examining the ship's foamy wake in imitation of its master.

Side-by-side they stood, surrounded by wind and darkness and the great brooding depths of the sea, over which their little boat crawled, as fast as it could, towards Sootopolis City. Though the waves were sedate, the back of Tabitha's neck prickled as he watched the dark water.

He did not like the ocean. Never mind that he had lived on a ship for the past few years of his life; the base had been so large that it never really felt like being at sea, and the benefits of not having a fixed location for headquarters had been too numerous to argue with. Nevertheless, Tabitha had been looking forward to the day when, having awoken Groudon and subdued it to their will, the team could finally set themselves up somewhere respectable, on solid ground. More than once he had turned over the poetic thought of having their base in the heart of Mt. Chimney. It seemed right, to him—more right than forever zigzagging over the unfathomable chaos that was the domain of their enemies.

Tabitha wondered where Groudon and Kyogre were. The latter was not nearby, as far as he knew, but there was nothing stopping it from crossing their path on its aimless journey through the ocean. This calm night could be broken anytime by a hurricane like the one at Monsu Island, like the one that had already swept over Sootopolis and cut it off from the world. Tabitha imagined the crater city (which he had never visited, only seen pictures of) in his mind's eye. What they would find there, he did not know. It seemed too much to hope that the Cave of Origin was really hidden there, or that it would contain a miracle if it was, but that was the only hope they had. He clung to it grimly.

Mightyena nudged his thigh, growling a little in the back of its throat with that one particular note that conveyed concern. Tabitha sat down on the hard deck and rested his head against the railing, scratching Mightyena behind the ears. It growled again.

"I'm all right, buddy," he told it. "I've just got a lot on my mind right now."

He kept scratching, and Mightyena's growl grew happier, its red-and-gold eyes half-closing. It nuzzled his armpit before settling down beside him, its front paws sticking out over the edge of the deck. Tabitha ran a hand through its fur; it needed a combing.

"We've been through a lot, haven't we?" Tabitha asked, as much to himself as to his Pokémon. "Been a long time since I found you digging through a dumpster that day." He patted Mightyena's ribs. "Little runt. You were only about this big."

Mightyena snarled; Tabitha laughed.

"Hey, no offense. I was a runt back then too."

Back then...Tabitha frowned and retreated into himself, no longer watching the dark world glide past. He had kept as busy as possible at the Space Center, because he found that when he wasn't fetching and carrying and supervising, _back then _stole into his thoughts, uninvited. In his gut, Tabitha knew why. Every hour that passed brought him closer to the moment (unthinkable three days ago, yet inevitable now) when Team Magma would be dissolved, its purpose broken, its members scattered. He would have to put his uniform away, and _back then _would become _right now_. He would become Tabitha—just Tabitha, not Magma Admin Tabitha.

The thought repulsed him. Magma Admin Tabitha had authority, duties, a superior and subordinates, and a clear, unwavering goal that he strove toward every day of his life. Just-Tabitha had—what? A Mightyena, and a little money crumpled in the pocket of his mud-stained pants. That was it.

Tabitha brooded. Granted, he'd had to start over with less than that before, when the old man had kicked him out. But that was almost a decade ago, and Tabitha sensed that something about himself was different now. He was no longer a wayward and wary teenager, unsure of what he wanted or what it meant to be a man; furthermore, he'd been with Team Magma for years, and had grown comfortably used to stability, to waking up morning after morning and knowing what he needed to accomplish that day. As he sat there on the windy deck, Tabitha felt the weight of those hundreds of days in uniform pressing on his mind, as if they were trying to justify themselves through strength in numbers. They should, he thought fiercely, have some kind of power. How couldn't they? How could all of it have been for nothing?

But so it was. It had only taken one day—half a day, really—to render those hundreds of other days meaningless. Hundreds of days, and dozens of missions, and thousands upon thousands of hours...

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"I'm assuming that Courtney already told you why you're here?"

Maxie's tone was not threatening, but that did little to ease Tabitha's nerves. He stood stiffly at attention across from Maxie's polished desk, and had thrown his hood back so that his face was more visible; now he wondered whether that was appropriate. He had never been personally summoned before the boss like this.

"Not exactly, sir. She just said that you'd be wanting to talk to me soon."

"I see."

Maxie leaned back in his plush office chair, setting his elbows on the armrests and interlocking his fingers, one leg crossed over the other. Behind him, sunlight streamed through the glass that substituted for the far wall, offering a panorama of the sparkling ocean beyond. In the distance, Tabitha could see the small chain of uninhabited islands they had just left.

"Well, don't worry, you aren't in trouble," Maxie said. "Rather the opposite, in fact."

Tabitha did not know how to respond to this, and stood waiting for Maxie to say something more, hoping he did not look as awkward as he felt. After a few moments of scrutiny (which seemed like a whole minute to Tabitha), Maxie lowered his hands into his lap.

"Please, have a seat." When Tabitha had done so, he added, "You won't mind if I ask you a few personal questions, will you?"

"Uh...No, sir. Not at all."

"You don't have to answer anything if you'd prefer not to. I'm merely curious, that's all." Tabitha half-expected him to procure a notepad and pencil from one of the drawers of his desk, but Maxie simply continued scrutinizing him with that same level gaze and asked, "Your name is Tabitha, correct?"

"Yes, sir. Tabitha Harlan."

"That is your legal name?"

"Yes." Defensively, he added, "My folks thought I was gonna be a girl."

"Hm." Maxie almost smiled. "How old are you, Tabitha?"

"I'll be twenty-two next month, sir."

"And you've been with Team Magma how long, exactly?"

"Two years." Tabitha mentally counted back. "Almost two years. I joined up in Pacifidlog, back before we had the base."

"That's what I thought. Are you from Pacifidlog Town, Tabitha?"

"No, sir."

"Where are you from?"

Tabitha shifted in his seat. Maxie noticed, and said, "Naturally, if you'd prefer not to disclose certain information, that's quite understandable. I don't mean to pry."

"No, I..." Tabitha hesitated. "It's just that nobody's asked me any of this in a while." He paused again, then said, "I came to Pacifidlog from Slateport City."

"You were raised there?"

"Slateport? Yeah." Tabitha's expression darkened. "Sir."

"But you moved?"

"Yes. Well, I didn't head for Pacifidlog, exactly, I just sort of...wound up there, after a while. I left home when I was sixteen."

"I see. And what were you doing with yourself before you joined Team Magma?"

"Before I joined? Uh...Not a lot, to be honest, sir. I was working down at the docks when I first joined up, but I hadn't been there long. Had a lot of odd jobs before that."

"Any criminal activity?"

Tabitha hesitated again. Maxie raised an eyebrow; something like a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"You mustn't think it will count against you somehow. Again, I'm simply curious."

"Uh. Well..." Tabitha grimaced. "Yeah, I got into trouble sometimes. Stealing, that kind of thing. Nothing big, though. Never did time."

"Do you have any Pokémon, Tabitha?"

"Yes, sir. A Mightyena."

"One of ours?"

"No. I had it before I joined."

"Any others?"

"No, sir."

Maxie sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers, gazing keenly over them, as though Tabitha were an interesting rock specimen he had been called upon to analyze. Tabitha did not know much about the boss, other than the few scraps of common knowledge that circulated among the grunts, and it made Maxie's scrutiny all the more intimidating. Not that Tabitha thought he was trying to be intimidating on purpose, but well—he was the boss.

Several long moments passed, during which Tabitha had to force himself not to fidget, and at last he asked aloud, "Sir, may I ask what this is about?"

Maxie interlaced his steepled fingers and rested his mouth against them, looking pensive, as though deciding how best to phrase what he wanted to say. Then he dropped his hands onto the desk.

"Well, Tabitha...the fact is that I'm considering giving you a promotion."

It took Tabitha a second to comprehend this.

"A what, sir?"

"A promotion. Though, I suppose that isn't quite the word...Hmm. Well, at any rate, I'm sure you've noticed that the team has grown recently, and Commander Courtney has been complaining strenuously about having too many people to manage at once. So I've decided to appoint someone else to share her rank. Another administrator, if you will."

"An...administrator?"

Maxie's eyebrows raised again. "You're not interested?"

"That's not what I meant, sir," Tabitha said quickly. "It's just—I don't know how good I'd be at that. I like going out on assignments, leading squads..."

"But that's exactly why Courtney suggested you." Maxie looked amused. "Don't trouble yourself over the word 'admin,' if it bothers you. I had meant something more along the lines of 'field commander.' You would be responsible for organizing groups for all of the missions, and leading them yourself, if they're of sufficient importance. You've proven yourself unusually capable."

Tabitha absorbed this with difficulty. At last he managed, "This is a great honor, sir. Thank you."

"I take it that you have no objections, then?"

"No, sir. None at all."

"Then it's settled."

Tabitha was taken aback. "Sir?"

"You said you want the position."

"But you said you were just considering it."

"I _was_ considering it—quite seriously, in fact. Now it's decided."

Tabitha felt stunned. He said, "Thank you, sir," remembered he had already said that, then wondered what else he was supposed to add. Then he wondered whether he was making a bad impression in his first thirty seconds as an admin. Maxie seemed to read his mind.

"I know this is sudden," he said, "and naturally, you won't have to begin your new duties right away. I suggest you talk to Courtney to get the full picture of what you'll be doing. I'll review the situation with you both in a few days, once you and she have had time to work things out."

"Yes, sir. I'll talk to Commander Courtney today."

"Very good." Maxie's attention turned to a manilla folder of papers at his elbow, and he pulled the folder closer, leafing through its contents. Then he seemed to remember something and looked up. "Oh, one minor point: it would be best if you had your uniform modified in some way, to reflect your new position. Think about what you might like in that regard and let me know. I'm assuming, of course, that you don't want to share Commander Courtney's uniform."

If Tabitha had not been so overwhelmed, he would have laughed at the joke. Courtney wore a shin-length skirt with a slit all the way up the side.

"No, sir. I'll think about it."

"Excellent." Maxie thumbed through the papers again, pulling one out of the folder and setting it in front of him. "Well, that's all in order, then. Congratulations, Commander Tabitha."

Commander Tabitha.

The boss had just called him 'Commander Tabitha.'

"Do you need anything else from me, sir?" Tabitha managed, still struggling to wrap his brain around his new station in life. Maxie marked something with a fountain pen on the piece of paper he'd extracted; it looked like a budget sheet.

"Not at the moment, no. You're free to go, if you have other things to attend to."

Tabitha peeled himself out of his chair and saluted, which Maxie acknowledged with a polite nod. Already he was absorbed in his work, circling a row of numbers on the sheet in front of him. He frowned as he studied them and tapped his pen against the paper, creating a little constellation of ink flecks in the corner. Sunlight winked off of the metal nib of his pen as he jotted something down.

When Tabitha reached the doorway, he paused, tempted to pinch himself to see if all of this was real. _Commander Tabitha. _It had a satisfying ring to it.

As he swung the door closed behind him, Tabitha caught one last scrap of sound from inside; Maxie had hit the intercom.

"—send Butler to my office, please? Thank you."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Mightyena growled; the sunlit office vanished. Tabitha realized that Mightyena had turned its attention to something across the deck, and he twisted around to see what it was.

In the darkness he could see nothing clearly, but it seemed that someone else had arrived on deck and was leaning against the far railing. Mightyena growled again, and the stranger, hearing this, turned. It was Commander Shelly.

"Easy, buddy," Tabitha told Mightyena. It stopped growling and flicked its ears; he patted it reassuringly. Shelly turned back to face the sea, and Tabitha watched her, curious.

He had ignored her completely for the past two days. Maxie had called a truce, after all, and in any case Tabitha had had his hands full at the Space Center without bothering over the fate of the last shred of Team Aqua. Now he surprised himself by getting to his feet and striding over to her; Mightyena trotted at his heels.

Shelly did not move away when Tabitha stepped up nearby, but neither did she acknowledge his presence. She was holding onto the railing with both hands, her expression fixed, gazing at the murmuring water, or perhaps at something invisible inside her mind. The wind teased her long red hair.

"Evening, commander."

Shelly glanced at him. "I think it's technically morning already."

"Just trying to be polite."

Tabitha stuck his hands in his pockets and looked out at the horizon. Only the absence of stars showed where the black sky ended and the black sea began.

"So, you couldn't sleep either?" Shelly asked. Tabitha shrugged.

"I was asleep for a while."

"Cargo hold not cozy enough for you?"

"No, it's fine. I just had a bad dream, that's all."

Shelly seemed surprised he had admitted this, but Tabitha did not elaborate.

For a few minutes, neither of them spoke. Only the wind and the occasional word from the foredeck staved off silence. Then Tabitha said aloud, as if to himself, "Y'know, it's funny."

"I'm impressed you can find something funny in this situation, Commander Tabitha."

"That's not what I meant." Tabitha looked askance at her. "I just think it's ironic that we're going to look for the Cave of Origin together, after all the time we spent racing to see who would find it first."

"Hm." She leaned further against the railing. "Point taken."

Another lull. Mightyena, having decided that Shelly was not going to pull any tricks, laid down on the deck and rested its head between its forepaws, blinking sleepily. Shelly tossed her head when the wind blew her hair across her face, and Tabitha, having nothing more to say, silently watched the water, black except for one little patch of silver where it reflected what was left of the moon.

He did not hate her. Tabitha realized this suddenly, as if the fact of it had come to him from without, and he frowned over at Shelly's profile, puzzled with himself. He ought to hate her—had hated her quite recently, in fact—but Tabitha felt oddly gutted now, like someone had come and cleaned out the place in his mind where the constant threat of Team Aqua used to live. The nightmare he'd had came back to him. It had disturbed him, he realized, because it showed him what he had known to be true but not cared to admit: that events could easily have gone the other way, that only a fluke of fate had completely shattered Shelly's team and left him some of his. Earlier that week, Tabitha would have been viciously pleased at the thought of Team Aqua crumbling to pieces; now he found he did not care much. Though Shelly was responsible in no small part for his current hardships, hating her would have used emotional resources that he could not afford to divert. His world had been stripped to the bone; there was no energy left in him to bother with her, not when other things—and other people—mattered so much more.

Many minutes passed in the darkness. Neither Tabitha nor Shelly said anything else, and when Tabitha began to feel tired again, he stepped away from the railing. Mightyena raised its head at once, and bared its fangs in a huge yawn before clambering to its feet and following its master. Tabitha did not offer any parting words to Shelly as he made for the stairs to the cargo hold.

Shelly listened to him leave. When she was quite sure he was gone, she relaxed, her shoulders slumping, her raised chin falling onto her chest as she sighed. Only the sea heard her.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

Archie looked up from where he had been bent over a sheaf of blueprints. He was bandana-less, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, a pencil in one hand and an uncapped pen clamped between his teeth. As he straightened, he extracted the pen and tossed it onto the rickety table; it rustled the blueprints as it skidded off the edge, clattering to the floor and bouncing away. Archie did not seem to notice.

"There you are, Shelly. Come on in, I wanna talk to you."

He waved her in with his pencil-free hand, at the same time scribbling a notation on one of the blueprints. Shelly hesitated, then stepped inside the room, glancing around it curiously as she adjusted her bandana and gave a tug on the bottom of her striped shirt. So many maps and navigational charts had been hung up that very little of the actual walls were visible anymore. The largest one, a four-foot-square blaze of psychedelic color festooned with thumbtacks and pencil lines, turned out, on closer inspection, to be a topographical map of the seafloor around Route 124, the colors indicating different water depths. Shelly squared her shoulders.

"Do you have orders for me, sir?" she asked.

"Not exactly."

Archie made a show of rolling down his sleeves, and Shelly got the sense that whatever he wanted to say was important. She could not guess what it might be, though. The last mission she'd participated in had gone very well, and Commander Matt had praised her especially; there was no reason she could think of why the boss might want to talk to her alone. In fact he had never spoken with her individually before, except as part of conversation with other team members.

"Shelly, I've been thinking," Archie began, folding his arms across his muscular chest. "With all the new recruits we've been getting, and now the sub coming in...I've gotta shake things up. Matt and I can't be everywhere at once, so the team needs to be reorganized if we wanna stay ahead."

Though Shelly agreed with this assessment of affairs, it did not seem a significant enough observation to warrant summoning her. Yet he sounded as if he had a definite point in mind. She tossed her head.

"Archie, sir—what is this about?"

Archie looked surprised at her forthrightness, but took it in stride.

"Well, Shelly, here's the deal: I wanna make you an admin."

Shelly tried to decide whether she had heard this correctly.

"A what, sir?"

"An administrator. Or whatever you wanna call it. Second-in-command. Same as Matt." Archie sounded resolute. "I've been thinking about it ever since we closed the deal for the sub. Soon as we get it, Matt's gonna be busy with all the modding, and the team's gotten to where I can't run everything on my own. I need another admin who can go out and make sure shit gets done—recon, all of that. I've decided that's gonna be you."

"Why me?"

Archie looked puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, sir," said Shelly, "why have you chosen me for this honor?"

He regarded her skeptically. "Shelly, if you don't want to do it—"

"I do, sir. It's just that there are other people who have been with the team longer who deserve it more."

"No, there aren't," Archie said. "Shelly, no one deserves this more than you. You're a damn good squad leader, the best diver on the whole team, and you've got enough brains and guts for three people. Besides..." He hesitated, surveying her with uncharacteristic pensiveness, and rubbed his bearded chin. "Well, the fact is—I like you, Shelly. You've done good work ever since you joined up, and from what I've seen, you really get it."

"Get what, sir?"

"This." Archie jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the maps pinned to the wall. "What Team Aqua's shooting for. How important it is to stop those Magma bastards. You get it. Not everybody does. A lot of the guys are just in it for fun, y'know—stealing shit, causing trouble. But you get the big picture."

Shelly gave herself a bit to process this. Archie watched her.

"Look, if you need some time to think it over...I guess I sprang this on you outta nowhere."

"It's all right, sir. I accept the position."

"Good." He sounded satisfied. "Makes my life easier. What do you wanna be called?"

"Sir?"

"Y'know—officially. I guess you and Matt are both 'admins,' but if you wanted some kinda title..."

"Commander," said Shelly at once. "If that's all right."

Archie mused, tapping his mustache with the eraser of his pencil.

"Ehh...Not fancy enough. Gotta make it something different from Matt." His expression brightened. "'Tactical Commander,' how about that? Since you'll be heading up all the field work."

Tactical Commander Shelly...

She turned the phrase over in her mind. It sounded very pleasing, and Shelly found herself already dividing her fellow grunts—but they were no longer her fellow grunts, were they?—into categories of strengths and weaknesses, as though a part of her had somehow anticipated this overwhelming news and been ready to take up new duties. If there would be another mission soon, it would be up to her to decide who to tap for it. But of course, everything depended on what the actual assignment was to be. Adrian was a skillful swimmer, but tended to get nervous if Team Magma showed up, and wasn't as comfortable handling the group's Pokémon as Shelly would have liked. Chelsea usually—

"Well, if that's it," said Archie, his rough voice interrupting her train of thought, "you might as well go find Matt and work out how you'll split things up. And I guess you'll need a new uniform...Eh, well, you can just wear the same one as Matt."

"Commander Matt doesn't wear a shirt, sir," Shelly pointed out. Archie considered this.

"I meant the little...vest thing," he corrected; Shelly was not certain she believed him. "Whatever, you pick what to wear. I don't care as long as you stick out."

"I'll do that, sir," Shelly said, and saluted. Archie glanced down at the submarine blueprints, then underlined a note he had made before looking back up.

"Sounds good. I'll let the rest of the team know the deal tomorrow morning...should give you time to get used to it."

"Thank you, sir." Shelly fought to suppress a smile as the reality of her new position began to sink in. It was all the more thrilling for being unexpected. "Do you need anything else from me?"

"Nah, not right now. I'll call you in if I think of something I forgot."

He returned his attention to the blueprints, and Shelly, saluting once more out of habit, turned and left the way she had come. In the doorway, she paused, glancing over her shoulder, one gloved hand on the doorknob.

Archie had turned to face one of the maps on the wall and was contemplating it, his pencil hovering an inch from the surface. As she watched, he muttered something to himself (audible to her only as a low rumble) and marked an X on an island cove, then stuck a thumbtack there, stepping back to survey this apparently crucial alteration from a distance. Tactical Commander Shelly allowed herself a smile.


	10. Chapter 10

They arrived during sunrise at the giant crater in which Sootopolis City was nestled, but there was some difficulty getting clearance to enter. The city was still largely under a blackout, making coordinating communications difficult, and there were a handful of other vessels already waiting their turn to sail into the crater. The Mossdeep expedition (such as it was) mulled about the aft deck, chomping at the bit, while the captain sorted out the issue—with the exception of Lance, who only had enough patience to wait ten minutes before flying into the city alone on Dragonite.

"I'll head to the police station and get the lay of the land from Officer Jenny," Lance told Steven. "Hopefully I can find out whether Wallace is around."

"Wallace might be in Sinnoh for all I know," was Steven's reply, "but if anybody knows anything, it's him. And if he's around, Juan will know where he is. Head to the Gym once you've figured things out; I'll meet you there."

Lance was soon lost to sight in the distance, his black cape whipping behind him as Dragonite shot towards the massive wall of stone rising out of the sea. White houses piled along its upper reaches glimmered like a coat of icing along the crest of the huge crater, and Steven stood admiring the view, his hands in his pockets, his silver-white hair tinged orange by the morning sun behind him. He did not look relaxed, exactly, but he was much closer to it than the energetic Lance had been.

"Who is Wallace?"

Steven looked over. Shelly had tied her long hair back with her bandana and was watching him with reserved interest; they had not exchanged a word since boarding the ship the previous evening.

"Friend of mine." After a pause, Steven added, "Don't watch a lot of TV, do you?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Steven shrugged.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

It was another two hours before the ship finally received radio permission to enter Sootopolis. Steven had posited that Lance might return if there was news of interest, but he had not done so, and so Steven, Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly had no idea what to expect as they stood in a row along the side of the deck, watching the crater loom ever larger as the ship puttered forward. At last the great gray mountain of stone reared right over them, blocking the sun, and then the ship passed through the massive archway carved out of the shell of the ancient volcano, emerging after a brief and echoing darkness into the harbor of Sootopolis City.

Shelly leaned over the railing. She had not seen Sootopolis in years, and her first, silly thought was that somehow, it would look exactly as she remembered it. All of the summers she had spent here had long ago melted together in her mind, so that those memories felt less like memories and more like fantasies, like dreaming about living in a postcard. Tiers of square white buildings draped with colorful banners shining under the sun, bright all around her group of friends as they strolled down the narrow cobbled streets toward the harbor, eating gelato, laughing...

The city's unique geography had spared Sootopolis the force of the tsunami caused by Groudon's quake, but Kyogre had certainly made its presence felt afterwards. The half-circle of city spread in a panorama around the ship looked battered, weary; Shelly shielded her eyes against the sun just peeking over the crater rim and assessed the damage as best as she could from a distance. Nothing was burning, at least. But a press of ships clogged the harbor—too many, some floating wrecks—and when their own boat eased closer to the dock, Shelly could better distinguish the aftermath of the storm, snapped telephone poles and twisted metal signs and whole rows of shopfronts with the glass blown out, standing gaping and empty like hungry mouths.

"Place looks pretty good, considering," said Steven; it took Shelly a moment to realize he was not being facetious. He nudged the backpack at his feet, then heaved it up and swung it over his shoulders; it made a great deal of noise. Something on the approaching dock caught his attention, and he leaned forward. Shelly followed his gaze.

A middle-aged man with a streak of silver in his dark hair was standing on the pier with one hand on his hip, watching their boat pull in. He looked quite out of place amidst the bustle of dock workers and casually-dressed civilians, arrayed as he was in a striking blue frock coat, a gemstone glittering on his cravat. But somehow—perhaps because he was so handsome, and held himself with such dignity—the effect was dashing, rather than absurd. Steven waved at him as the boat eased into place; he waved back.

"Who is that?" Shelly asked Steven.

"Friend of a friend," he answered, without turning to her. "He knows my buddy Wallace."

Half a minute later, the ship bumped against the side of the pier, the rubber tires hanging from the side cushioning the impact with the dock. Steven, Shelly, Maxie, and Tabitha tried to keep out of the way of the crew as they bustled about, anchoring the ship and lashing it to one of the nearby posts. Steven called to the man in the blue coat.

"Hey, long time no see! Lance send you over?"

"Indeed!" the man replied. "I ran into him half an hour ago—he was in quite the hurry."

Steven adjusted his backpack on his shoulders as the crewmen lowered a gangplank, and was the first one to disembark; the weight of the backpack did not seem to bother him. Shelly followed right behind him, and Maxie and Tabitha brought up the rear, though Tabitha kept a little distance from Maxie, who ignored him.

The man in the frock coat greeted them—or rather, Steven—with great gusto.

"Steven Stone!" he said, extending his arms. Steven managed an answering hug, despite his overflowing backpack. "How good to see you! I regret the occasion, of course, but you must agree it's been too long."

"Everybody always says that when they see me."

"Well, one can hardly blame them! You spend so much time hiding in caves that it's a wonder anyone remembers you at all. Wallace will be delighted."

"Is he in town? I thought maybe he was off on the contest circuit somewhere."

"He was in Johto, but he returned to Sootopolis last night. He wanted to be here for his city, of course, during these trying times." He looked from Steven to the others. "But I am being impolite. You've brought guests. What do they call you, my dear?"

Shelly looked taken aback, but recovered quickly. "I'm Shelly."

"Ah! Such a lovely name."

"Thanks," she said flatly. "And you are?"

"My name is Juan."

He took her hand and bowed to kiss it. She looked like she did not know what to make of this.

"And you are who, exactly?" she asked again, when Juan straightened.

"I am many things. First and foremost I consider myself an artist, and a connoisseur of all that is beautiful in this life."

"Do you have a job?"

Juan smiled and bowed once more; her dry tone did not seem to faze him.

"Certainly, my good lady. It is my privilege to be the leader of the Sootopolis City Pokémon Gym, and I have a great number of artistic hobbies besides. But my guiding passion will always be Water-type Pokémon."

Shelly looked wary. She noticed Tabitha smirking at her, and glared in response, then said to Juan, "Well, that's admirable of you."

"I'm delighted that you think so."

"Juan," interrupted Steven, "this is Shelly, Maxie, and—uh, Tabitha. They're from Team Aqua and Team Magma. I don't know if Lance mentioned..."

Tabitha and Shelly both straightened, their chins raising, but Maxie just sighed and brushed off the front of his coat.

"Team Aqua and Team Magma, hm?" Juan looked between them. "How very interesting. I have heard of you both, though I must confess I have heard nothing good. Perhaps my sources were mistaken?"

"They weren't," said Shelly, and shrugged. Tabitha glared at her, and Maxie said, "I suppose that depends on what you've been told. Certainly, from an outsider's perspective, Team Magma's activities must have appeared...questionable."

"Hmm." Juan regarded him with polite skepticism. "Well, I'm certain there will be time enough to explain. But it seems that we have weightier matters to consider at present. You seek the Cave of Origin, am I correct?"

"Yeah," said Steven. "We think it's here in Sootopolis." He looked around at the rest of the busy harbor hopefully, as though the entrance to the Cave of Origin might suddenly open up next to a ruined hotel. "Have you ever heard of it, Juan?"

"I have indeed. A marvelous place."

"Marvelous?"

"I certainly think so." Juan looked between them all. "You should consider yourselves fortunate; not even lifelong residents of Sootopolis know about the Cave of Origin. To be permitted to enter it is a great honor. I only regret that we do not have time for the appropriate pomp and circumstance."

"Wait—you know where the Cave of Origin is?" asked Steven.

Juan chuckled.

"Certainly. I have visited the Cave of Origin many a time—though not in recent years, I admit. Still, Wallace assures me it is as accessible as it ever was. In fact, he's there right now. I've already sent one of my Pokémon along with a note to tell him to expect company."

"Wallace knows too?" Steven said indignantly. "And he's never told me?"

Juan laughed.

"My dear Steven, you must forgive Wallace for not telling you. The knowledge of the Cave of Origin passes through very few hands, and only ever with good reason. I assure you, he did not withhold the truth out of spite. It is his duty to keep the secret of the Cave, as it once was mine."

"Duty?" echoed Shelly. Juan looked to her, bowing slightly.

"Most certainly. Sootopolis is a very old city, and we have many traditions, but not all of them are common knowledge. The guardianship of the Cave of Origin has been handed down for generations between worthy Water Pokémon trainers here. It is no coincidence that our official Gym has been of that type ever since its founding."

"And you're going to just—let us all in to the Cave?" Tabitha asked. "Right away?"

"But of course. Your friend Lance has already explained to me your business there." Off of his look, he said, "I do not value the traditions of the dead over the safety of the living, however old and sacred those traditions may be. If the Cave of Origin can reveal to us how to put an end to these terrible disasters, then there we must go, without hesitation." To Steven, he said, "Lance told me to tell you he is scavenging for equipment, and he will meet us here as soon as he can. He did not mention how long he might be, though."

"He does that," Shelly observed.

"I've brought some stuff," said Steven, indicating his bulging backpack, "but not much. My house out in Mossdeep is gone, this is just what I had time to throw on Skarmory before the wave hit. It's mostly stuff from my collection, actually..."

Juan chuckled.

"You are without a doubt one of the most single-minded enthusiasts I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, Steven. A man has a matter of minutes to save what is most precious in his house, and he chooses what? Not his papers, not his valuables—but rocks."

"Rocks are my valuables," said Steven, without a trace of irony. "And anyway, I've got a lot of houses. I was just lucky to get out of there." He edged out of the way of a passing worker and the Azumarill following him. "So Lance didn't say anything about when he'd be done?"

"No, not specifically. He simply explained your errand and said you'd all be arriving some time this morning. I don't suppose you've got a way to contact him?"

"Nope." Steven stuck his hands in his pockets. "Well, if he takes too long we can always head to the police station; they'll have seen him at some point, I'm sure."

They waited. Juan and Steven kept chatting, trading stories of how their communities had handled the aftermath of the disaster; it seemed they had not talked in a while, and their conversation sometimes strayed to mutual acquaintances. Shelly stood with her back to them, facing the harbor, watching the ships skitter back and forth, and Maxie and Tabitha stood apart on either side of her, Tabitha taking in the city around them and Maxie seemingly lost in thought. Once or twice Tabitha looked over at Maxie, watching him, but Maxie did not acknowledge this, though he did at least seem to notice the attention; he stiffened and raised his chin whenever Tabitha glanced his way. People passing by on the dock sometimes slowed, staring at Tabitha's strange uniform; he glared, and they moved on.

Shelly was the first to notice the thing in the sky. She shaded her eyes to watch the distant figure approach, and as it drew closer from the other side of the city, the others' attention fixed on it, as well. Even a number of the people at the harbor took interest. Juan looked over from his conversation with Steven.

"Ah! Unless I am mistaken, here is our man at last."

As it approached, Dragonite made a low pass over the line of empty storefronts, nearly clipping the sign above a bakery. At last it landed a dozen feet away, and Lance leaped from its back before it quite touched the ground, ignoring the general curiosity he had aroused. Dragonite was carrying a large, waterproof bag, and Lance heaved this onto his own shoulder before recalling Dragonite into its Pokéball, striding up to where the others were waiting.

"Finally made it in?" he asked Steven as he approached. "How long did it take you all?"

"Couple of hours. Where in the world have you been?"

"Getting ready—and hunting down coffee." Lance ran a hand through his spiky hair, then slung the heavy bag off of his shoulder, setting it carefully onto the ground. "Managed to pick us up some stuff we might need. Is Wallace still meeting us in the Cave?"

"As far as I am aware," said Juan. "I had thought he might come out to greet us, actually, but it seems we'll have to go to him."

"How far away is the Cave of Origin from here?" Tabitha asked, interrupting. Juan, Steven, and Lance looked over at him.

"It's quite close," said Juan. "We shouldn't take more than half an hour to get there."

"On foot?"

"On foot?" Juan sounded puzzled, but then his eyes lit up. "Ah, silly me! I had forgotten to mention..."

"Mention what?" asked Tabitha warily.

Juan gestured to the right, out towards the busy harbor.

"We will all be swimming underwater to reach the Cave of Origin. I apologize for not clarifying that sooner."

"Underwater?"

Tabitha glanced over at Shelly, who smirked. He turned his attention to the water, suspiciously watching the waves slap against the side of the dock.

"The Cave is in the harbor?" he asked.

"No, but the harbor is the only way to enter it. Whatever other entrances might have existed were sealed off long ago."

"How far do we have to swim?"

"Oh, we won't be swimming of our own accord," said Juan reassuringly. "I own a number of Water-type Pokémon who will assist us. It's too far for a human to swim easily, and my Pokémon know the way. One could easily get lost on one's own. Just be certain you can hold your breath for a minute or two."

Tabitha was not certain of this at all—he had never particularly needed to hold his breath for a long time—and frowned harder at the water, watching foam swirl around the algae-coated pillars of the dock. Juan spoke to Lance.

"I suppose it would be too much to suggest that we stop at my home first? We would be glad of a change of attire once we've reached the Cave."

"No time," said Lance gruffly, digging through his backpack. "Well, you all can go do that, if you want. I'm going down to the Cave right away. I've been through too much lately to care about being wet for a few hours." He stuffed something heavy deeper into the backpack, then sealed it up again. "Frankly, I'm just glad we know where this place is—I was expecting a hell of a headache trying to find it."

"I'm going down with you," said Steven at once. "I don't mind it either—getting wet, I mean."

In unison, the two of them looked over at Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly, who in turn exchanged glances. Shelly spoke first.

"I'm going too. I don't see the point in wasting time when what we want is right here."

Tabitha nodded his agreement. Maxie frowned, then sighed.

"Well, I suppose it's the most sensible thing to do. Though I wouldn't prefer to...But it's not as if I have a change of clothes anyway." Another sigh.

"Maybe you should stay here, sir," Tabitha said; Maxie's frowned deepened, and he raised his chin, not looking at Tabitha.

"I'm quite all right, thank you, commander."

"You should come," Lance agreed. When both Maxie and Tabitha looked surprised, he added, "We've all got to put our heads together on this. Whatever's in there, it's going to take all of us to figure out what we're looking at, and you're the closest thing I've got to a panel of experts right now. The sooner we get down there, the sooner we find some answers." To Juan, he said, "Where's the entrance to the Cave?"

"In the north end of the harbor." He pointed across the water; everyone followed his gaze. "The simplest thing to do, I think, would be to enter the water here and swim out in that direction. To that end..."

Juan procured a handful of Pokéballs from a pocket on the inside of his coat and tossed them artfully, with practiced ease, into the air. As each one snapped open, a swirl of energy burst from it, solidifying in the water into a different creature; soon there were half a dozen Pokémon peering up at them from the water. The largest was a Milotic, fifteen feet long; its smooth scales gleamed as it coiled itself in the water, gazing up at them and trilling. Tabitha glared at it. It blinked gently and swished its fan-like tail, unperturbed.

"Pelipper, my dear," Juan said, addressing the only Pokémon that had appeared in the air above them instead of in the water, "would you mind fetching Sebastian, please? Thank you kindly."

The Pelipper squawked and darted away, heading away over the city behind them; Shelly and Steven watched it go, and Tabitha asked, "Who is Sebastian?"

"My butler." Juan unfastened his cravat as he spoke. "Even if we don't want to trouble ourselves for a proper change of clothes, I would rather not do unnecessary damage to my coat. If you've anything you don't want to get wet, leave it here and Sebastian will take it back to the house."

He removed his cravat with a flourish and folded it, then tucked it into his coat before removing that, too, pocketing his spare Pokéballs and leaving the coat folded neatly on the ground beside him. Tabitha hesitated, then pulled off his hood and gloves; Maxie took off his coat.

Lance gave the bag of equipment he had been carrying a going-over, making sure the waterproof casing was sealed tight. Once he was satisfied of this, he dangled the bag off the edge of the dock; Juan's Milotic stretched up and coiled around it, setting it into the water and keeping its tail wrapped around it to prevent it floating away under one of the piers. Lance adjusted his sleeves, and then, without warning, sprang off of the dock into the water. The splash made several workers nearby look over in surprise. Juan waved at them.

"Everything's all right!" he called, as Lance resurfaced and wrapped an arm around Juan's Seaking. "No need to be alarmed." To Lance, he added, "I suppose you didn't want to leave your cape behind, then?"

"Too late now," said Lance, shrugging; his cape floated behind him on the surface. "Who else is coming?"

There was another loud splash as Shelly executed a flawless forward dive into the harbor, reemerging next to Milotic. She looked no less comfortable in the water than it, despite her wet clothes. Juan raised an eyebrow, half-smiling.

Steven dropped his own backpack into the harbor; the waterproof casing made it bob like a cork. Juan's Tentacruel hooked a tentacle around the straps, and Steven crouched on the edge of the dock before easing himself into the water, landing beside the Tentacruel. Juan followed him. Tabitha watched all of this with an uneasy scowl, and so was surprised when Maxie, behind him, slid into the harbor, spluttering and putting an arm around the neck of Juan's Sealeo. Tabitha suddenly found himself standing alone on the dock, with everyone else looking up at him expectantly.

"Are you coming?" Lance asked.

Tabitha locked eyes with Shelly. The smirk she wore said clearly she thought he didn't know how to swim, and he grit his teeth, scrambling down off the dock and plopping into the harbor with less grace than he had intended. The water chilled the back of his neck, and his wet clothes made him feel heavy, so that for a second, when he first went under, he thought he might stay down. But then his head broke the surface, and he spat, trying to blink the stinging salt water out of his eyes. Something nudged his back, then floated into view: a Wailmer. Tabitha held onto it with both hands.

"Are we all set, then?"

Juan looked between them all with a politely interested expression, as though there were nothing unusual about the situation. Tabitha, however, thought they must look absurd: six grown people bobbing in the harbor, holding on to an assortment of Water Pokémon like children at their first swimming lesson.

"All right. Off we go!"

He and Milotic started forward; the rest of Juan's Pokémon followed, pulling their passengers along with them. Tabitha tried to keep his head as far above the water as possible, but spray kept splashing up into his nose, the salt irritating his sinuses. As they emerged into the open harbor from between the piers, he glanced back at his hood, a crumpled red pile next to Juan's neatly folded coat. He could not shake the bizarre fear that someone might, for some reason, steal it before Juan's butler showed up.

As they moved further out into the harbor, the crews of ships called to them, some baffled, some laughing, some hollering warnings. The further from shore they got, the less comfortable Tabitha felt. They were swimming north, towards a swathe of the massive crater along which no buildings were dotted, outside the edge of the city, and after a long twenty minutes they had gotten well away from any of the ships, leaving only the occasional weathered buoy to break the monotony of the cold blue water. At least the Pokémon seemed to know where they were going.

The crater wall loomed ever higher as they swam, blocking out more and more of the sky. To Tabitha it seemed almost as if they were standing still in fast-moving water, and the crater itself was marching toward them, slowly but steadily. Holding on to Wailmer was uncomfortable, and he adjusted his grip every few minutes, feeling like a bit of flotsam that had gotten snagged on the Pokémon's fins and was now being dragged unceremoniously about.

By the time they actually reached the crater wall, Tabitha's hair had begun to dry from the constant breeze. Milotic halted ten yards from the craggy stone, and the other Pokémon followed suit, floating in a semicircle around Juan and Milotic. Lance spat out some water and craned his neck back to look at the unbroken wall rising before them.

"Well, if everyone is ready?" Juan asked.

After the lengthy swim, a voice sounded strange. They all looked at each other.

"Very good," said Juan, taking the collective silence for a _yes. _"Everyone draw a deep breath, and follow me!"

Juan dove first, followed immediately by Shelly. Tabitha took the deepest breath he could, then dunked his head under the waves.

His eyes stung when he opened them underwater. He could see nothing at first, and clung to Wailmer's slippery round body, feeling at once heavy and weightless in the heaving water. Wailmer flapped its stubby fins and lurched forward. Tabitha clung tighter, feeling himself being pulled alongside it; it moved surprisingly quickly for something so awkwardly shaped. He kicked his legs a little, then realized it was useless and simply held on.

He could not see far. Even these few feet below the surface, the shadow of the crater made the water dark, and they were going deeper, diving straight down. Tabitha could make out big shapes around him—the others, clinging to their various Pokémon—and tried to see what was ahead, but Lance and Seaking were in the way. So he concentrated on holding his breath, counting in his mind so he would have some grasp of time.

Lance and Seaking disappeared. Wailmer halted, and Tabitha's ears popped as he floated behind Wailmer, watching another vague shape—Shelly and Staryu—dart forward and disappear too. Wailmer lurched again as it followed; Tabitha accidentally released a stream of air bubbles through his nose. His lungs began to sting.

There was some kind of opening in the rock. It was through this that the others had vanished, and total darkness swallowed Tabitha as Wailmer entered the narrow tunnel. Tabitha felt Wailmer's belly scrape the bottom as it plowed through the cold black water, and closed his eyes (since it made no difference now), trying to ignore the growing need to breathe.

The tunnel forked multiple times, or so Tabitha guessed from the movement of the water in certain places and the way Wailmer changed direction. Wailmer never hesitated, but that became less reassuring as the seconds slipped by and Tabitha's lungs began to burn more fiercely. It had been over two minutes since they left the surface. Tabitha clung as tightly as he could to Wailmer, fighting against the animal part of his brain that thought he was going to drown.

They began to climb up again. Tabitha opened his eyes, hoping to see light, but there was nothing around him but pitch blackness and the swirling sound of water. He had to breathe. He had to breathe. Were they anywhere near the surface? What if they weren't? He had to _breathe..._

Tabitha closed his eyes again, willing himself to ignore the pain in his lungs, but this was not possible anymore. Just a little longer—just a few more moments and they would surface—

His body knocked against the side of the steep tunnel as Wailmer pulled him through a sharp bend, and Tabitha gasped. A fat bubble of his own air escaped him, and instinctively, before he could stop himself, he inhaled. Water rushed into his nose and mouth.

It took every ounce of willpower for him not to thrash. Tabitha clamped his mouth shut again, fighting not to swallow more water, holding on to Wailmer so tightly it made a noise of protest. Tabitha felt himself bump the side of the narrowing tunnel again as Wailmer climbed. His brain stopped working. He needed to breathe; his lungs were about to burst—

Wailmer broke the surface in some dark place. Tabitha spat out water, spluttering, clinging to its round body like a life raft, and when it nudged him towards water he could wade in, he slipped off of it and fell, splashing, into the shallows.

"Ah, there they are. Wailmer, return!"

A thin red light shot over Tabitha's shoulder. Tabitha crawled on his hands and knees onto the rocky shore, dragging himself out of the cold water, gasping for air. Suddenly he puked. Dirty seawater spattered over the slick rock, and Tabitha coughed violently once his stomach had emptied, trying to rid the water from his lungs. Weird blotches of color danced in front of his eyes.

"You all right there?" he heard Lance ask. Tabitha forced himself to stop coughing and knelt, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"I'm fine," he gasped, getting to his feet.

Apparently he had been slow to arrive; everyone else looked all right. He noticed Shelly rolling her eyes at him as she wrung out her long red hair. Maxie was sitting on a nearby rock, dumping water out of his shoes, dripping wet. Tabitha thought he saw him look concerned, but in the next moment, Maxie had glanced away, the wet hair plastered across his face hiding his expression.

Tabitha gulped down the stale air and willed his racing heart to calm itself, taking in his new surroundings as his eyes adjusted. His soggy clothes felt cold and heavy, and he shivered.

From the smell and taste of the air, and the way the echoes of their voices vanished above them, Tabitha supposed they were in a vast cavern. There was little of it he could see, however. The high-powered lamp Steven held aloft threw a circle of light large enough to show him the edge of the black lake he had just emerged from, and the forms of the other people and Pokémon, but Tabitha could distinguish neither walls or ceiling. The darkness simply absorbed the lamplight without revealing a hint of what might lie beyond.

"Well, we have arrived," Juan was saying; Tabitha turned his attention to him. "This is the lowest level of the Cave of Origin. There are two other levels above us; I expect you will find them of more interest than this one. The air is a bit fresher up there, as well."

"Where's Wallace?" Steven asked, turning. The circle of lamplight shifted forward.

"I'm right here."

Everyone looked over. A man appeared out of the darkness, stepping into the circle of white lamplight; his wet turquoise hair had been tied back in a ponytail, but he was otherwise dry, and impeccably dressed. Apparently he had had the foresight to bring a change of clothes.

"Well, if it isn't Steven Stone!" he said, and shook Steven's free hand warmly. "This is quite the unexpected pleasure! I would have preferred more pleasant circumstances, but all the same...It's been far too long since we've sat down for a chat. What have you been doing with yourself?"

"Don't try to act friendly, Wallace," Steven replied, but he was smiling. "I'm pretty ticked at you for never telling me about this place." He gestured with the lamp towards the cavern ceiling, then turned around to face the others. "Wallace, this is my friend Lance, from Blackthorn City. He's the Plateau's Champion."

"Ah, but I remember!" Wallace extended a hand to the sopping Lance, who looked up from sorting through his bag of equipment to shake it. "You were one of the Elite Four of Kanto and Johto, were you not? A Dragon-type master like our Drake, I seem to recall."

"That's me," Lance admitted. "Got a real job too, though."

"I see. And who else is here?" Wallace asked cordially, noticing Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly. "More friends of yours, Steven?"

"They're with me," said Lance. "Sort of."

There was a pause. Maxie squeezed water out of his hair with one hand, then slicked it back so that it looked somewhat presentable.

"My name is Maxie," he said, in a dignified voice that contrasted with his dripping wet clothes. "I'm the leader of Team Magma."

"I see." It was impossible to tell from Wallace's expression whether this statement meant anything to him, but he sounded interested. He looked between Tabitha and Shelly. "And you two are—members, of this team?"

"I'm not," said Shelly, tossing her head. "I'm in charge of Team Aqua."

Wallace bowed with a flourish.

"Well, it is a pleasure to meet you all." He straightened from his bow and swept an arm to indicate the cavern behind him. "Allow me to personally welcome you to the Cave of Origin."


	11. Chapter 11

The large structure in the center of the island, it transpired, was a weatherbeaten tower. At least, Archie inferred it was a tower from the fact that he could not see the top. Its featureless sides rose high and straight, eventually lost in the mass of low-lying cloud that shrouded it at all times. He spent the better part of his second morning taking stock of this singular piece of architecture.

It seemed that at one point in time, there had been a high door leading inside the tower on its western face, but now that whole side was sealed off with rubble and mortar, and Archie realized quickly that he could not force his way in. The tower itself was made of pitted stone, covered by a layer of sunbaked earth that had eroded entirely in all but a few places. Oddly, the stone did not match that of the nearby cave. It had apparently been quarried elsewhere and brought here to build this monument, though when, or why, or by whom, Archie had no idea—save the obvious fact that it had been done a long time ago.

The small cave, which Archie investigated when the morning sun angled through its entrance, yielded no more answers than the tower. It looked like someone had once lived there, since carvings adorned the walls inside; a geometric web of connected circles and lines extended even up across the ceiling. It had taken a bit to realize why they seemed familiar, but he hit upon it eventually: the carvings looked very much like the patterns on Kyogre and Groudon's bodies. But he had no way of knowing whether this was a coincidence, and there was nothing else inside the cave from which to draw any conclusions. Whoever had made their home there had taken everything with them when they left.

The island itself was not quite a mile in circumference. Archie decided this as he ate lunch, walking the rim of the plateau as he had done the day before, studying every inch of the seamless blue horizon. There was no sight of land in any direction, nor any hint of a ship. The shoals that he had noticed the day before turned out to be a dead coral atoll which ringed the island, and at low tide he walked half a mile out on the hard skeleton of the reef and looked back on the island in the distance, gazing at the mysterious tower that rose, seemingly, all the way to heaven.

Archie did nothing at high noon, avoiding the sun in the grove of berry trees, but as soon as it began to tilt westward, he filled his pockets with fruit and headed back to the beach. The sea was calm, and the tide beginning to rise. He watched the water for a while, listening to its familiar voice, before walking up and down the shore, inspecting the flotsam. At intervals he stooped and collected items of interest to him—mostly sharp things, like fragments of Shellder shell—and at one point he pocketed something small that flashed in the sun like a diamond. When he had a handful of sharp implements, he returned to his cliffside ledge. Then he set about finding a rock.

Never mind that this was pointless; he had to do _something. _Yesterday's aimless brooding, if repeated, would drive him mad. His first task had been to explore the upper island as best as he could; that was accomplished. Now he set himself another project, purely so that he could be busy, so his mind could be occupied with something that seemed in some small way productive.

Near the stairs he found a suitable piece of stone, the size of a heavy textbook, and brought it back to the ledge. He pulled off his shoes and shirt, sat down, and started to gouge into the rock with the shards he'd gathered.

He did not work quickly, nor with great intensity, but there was a mechanical steadiness to his efforts that would have appeared unnatural had anyone been around to see it. He did not stop scraping when his hand began to hurt, or when hunger gnawed his gut, or when the sun blazed fiercely on his skin. Archie simply carved, pausing to change shards whenever labor had sufficiently dulled his current one. Only when a piece of shell sliced a thin gash in his palm did he halt, and even then, it was only so he could remove his bandana and tie it loosely around his hand as a bandage. Then he kept working.

His labor produced the intended effect: he did not think. Archie's world narrowed down to the task before him, and there was nothing else, no island and no ocean and no memories of anything that had ever happened in his thirty-six years of existence. So thoroughly did he lose himself in blissful tedium that when his work was done, it was already beginning to be evening. Archie ate some fruit, donned his shoes and shirt again, and went to have a much-needed drink.

When he neared the freshwater pool, he halted. A sound had reached him from that direction—a rustling of vegetation, as though something had darted through the undergrowth. Cautiously, he moved forward.

Nothing seemed amiss at first glance, but then Archie noticed ripples fanning across the surface of the pool. He looked around, his senses heightened, but he saw nothing anywhere; it unnerved him. Something had been here, something alive...or perhaps he had imagined it? No, that couldn't be, no leaf or twig had fallen into the water to cause the ripples.

Archie stood waiting, but nothing else happened, and his thirst was so great that after a minute, he relented and knelt by the pool. As he drank, he thought he heard the undergrowth rustle again. He strained to listen without giving any sign that he had noticed the noise. When he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he glanced across the way, and saw what he could not have when gazing down at the pool while standing.

A Pokémon was hiding in the undergrowth. Small and yellow, it peered warily at him from all fours, hunkered beneath the camouflaging shelter of the vegetation. Archie's first thought was that it was a large Plusle, but no—the markings weren't right. The tips of its long ears were black.

Archie and the Pokémon stared at each other.

"What're you lookin' at?"

The Pokémon turned and fled, disappearing like a flash of lightning. Archie was left staring at the spot where it had been, the sound of his own voice hanging loudly in the air.

******•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

He did not see the Pokémon again until nightfall proper. It was not for lack of interest, certainly; as soon as it had disappeared, he cursed himself for scaring away the first living thing he'd seen in two days, and spent half an hour searching that portion of the island for it. His efforts had been in vain, however, and Archie had returned to his ledge for a round of now unavoidable thinking. But when the sun began to set in earnest, he noticed something that made him scramble down again and walk back up the beach.

Light was flashing at intervals from a point further up the shore, like some kind of sputtering signal. He had a guess as to what it was, and found he was correct when he at last approached the spot where it originated, halting a safe distance away.

The Pokémon from earlier was generating electricity. Bright spurts of energy crackled from it, hitting a cluster of plant debris it had piled onto the sand; at one point a hint of flame arose, flickering red in the gloom before disappearing.

Archie did not have time to decide how to approach the situation, because suddenly the Pokémon froze, its ears twitching, and then turned to face him.

"_Pikaaa..."_

Its cheeks sparked in warning. Archie pulled a berry out of his pocket and held it out to show what it was, then tossed it onto the sand between them. The Pokémon darted forward, sniffing the fruit eagerly, and then nibbled it. It gave a cry and devoured the rest so quickly that Archie deduced it had not eaten much recently, if at all.

"I've got more," he said. His own voice sounded loud and strange to him over the steady noise of the nearby sea, after almost two days of total silence. "I'll trade you. Food for fire, how about that?"

He procured another berry. The Pokemon's mood had been significantly improved by the first peace offering, and now it ran up to him, catching the berry after he dropped it and scarfing it down. Archie took the opportunity to inspect the pile of debris; he had to bend over to see it in the deepening twilight.

"This ain't gonna light, little guy," he pronounced. "It's driftwood, it's too wet."

"Pi?"

"C'mon, there's better stuff up here."

The Pokémon followed Archie as he headed a few yards upland. In the growing darkness it was difficult to find what he sought, but he managed to wrench a few withered yellow fronds off of a short palm tree and snapped them into pieces with his bare hands, carrying the lot back to the sand and dumping it next to the original material. A quick sorting separated what was useable from what wasn't. The Pokémon watched him curiously as he reassembled everything.

"All right, try this."

"Pi..."

A flash of bright light momentarily blinded Archie, and when it vanished, a red flicker remained—the edge of one of the fronds had caught fire. The little flame would have died within seconds had Archie not scooped it up and cupped his other hand around it to shield it from the breeze. He used it to light the pile of fronds in several places, wincing when it stung his fingers before burning itself out; at his knee, the Pokémon watched the orange fires begin to gnaw the debris.

"Gonna take a while to get big," Archie said. He sat on the sand a few feet from the budding fire and looked over at the Pokémon beside him. "Where's your trainer, little guy?"

Wild Pokémon had neither the knowledge nor the inclination to build campfires, and Archie's guess was met with confirmation; the Pikachu (that was what these were called, he remembered) looked suddenly crestfallen, and its long ears drooped.

"Pikapi..."

It launched into what Archie assumed was an explanation, but not a syllable of it made sense to him. Still, the sound was preferable to the unbroken silence of the past day and a half, and Archie listened attentively, taking pleasure in the simple fact that there was something alive and sentient in his presence. He also had a strange feeling that he'd seen this Pokémon somewhere before, though he could not recall where, and it was perhaps for this reason that Archie felt less silly for interacting with it than he would have otherwise. When it paused, he interrupted.

"No fuckin' clue what you're saying, little guy," he admitted. "You fall off a boat or what?"

Though Pikachu was difficult to see, backlit as it was by the weak red firelight, Archie could still tell its expression was annoyed. Evidently it had been trying to tell him a very complicated story. It shook its head and began over again (or so Archie assumed), assisting itself with pantomime, and Archie, amused, paid closer attention. To his surprise, he thought he understood what it meant when it folded its ears back to make them look like horns.

"You with Team Magma?"

_"Chu."_ It shook its head.

"Huh. But you wound up with 'em?"

It nodded. Archie shifted position, leaning back on his hands.

"Well, they're gone," he said flatly. "All of 'em. How'd you get away?"

This produced another flurry of syllables, and then Pikachu shrieked as if in anger, releasing a bolt of electricity towards the sky. The sight of this triggered something in Archie's brain.

"Wait a minute..." He sat up straighter. "You were with Groudon! I remember that..."

Pikachu nodded, then pointed at him and said something in an unmistakeably accusing tone. Archie snorted. He distracted himself by tending the fire, which was now small but respectable; when Pikachu repeated itself, he scowled at it.

"Save it," he growled, and rubbed the side of his hand across his mouth. "I know what I did. No point rubbing it in." He dropped his hand, examining Pikachu curiously, and asked again, "But how'd you survive? Hell...How did I?"

He fell silent, contemplating this question. Pikachu looked nonplussed, and a little downcast. Its ears drooped.

"Pipikachu..."

The fire crackled hungrily. Archie fed it, frowning, and when he was satisfied that it would last, he sighed and scooted a couple of feet away on the sand, sitting with his arms resting on his bent knees.

"You have any idea where we are?"

"Chu."

"Me neither. Not Monsu Island, that's for sure." He studied the emerging stars. "We're a little further south. That's all I know."

Pikachu replied, but Archie did not understand it, and he shrugged to say as much.

For a few minutes, neither of them said or did much of anything. Archie gazed unseeingly at the water, his brow furrowed, and Pikachu licked its forepaws clean of berry juice.

"You think they're still out there, little guy?" Archie asked suddenly, apropos of nothing. "Groudon and Kyogre, I mean."

Pikachu looked over at him. "Pi? Kachuu..."

They exchanged looks, and Pikachu shook its head; Archie did not know whether it was disagreeing, or simply saying it knew no more than he. Idly Archie pulled another berry from his pocket and worked his dirty fingernails into the rind; when Pikachu perked up, its nose twitching, he peeled off a third of the juicy flesh and handed it over. Together they ate in silence.

Archie finished his berry and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, watching the waves wash across the shore under the light of a thousand stars. Pikachu moved to the other side of the fire and curled up on the sand, its small brown eyes half-closing—whether with sorrow or sleepiness, or both, it was hard to tell. When Archie spoke, its ears twitched in acknowledgement.

"Guess we're stuck here, huh, little guy?"

"Pi?" It blinked at him, then looked out over the dark water. "Pikapiii..."

For a long time, the two of them sat on either side of the fire, watching the stars above and the waves below, lost in their own thoughts. The sea sang them both to sleep.

******•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

_The water was cold. It sent goosebumps prickling up Archie's bare skin; they looked strange on the places where bright blue lines of light shone through his flesh. Maxie was still thrashing just below the surface, churning the black water, and one of his arms struck Archie across the face. Archie laughed and grabbed it. He was so strong now that one pull was all it took to wrench the arm out of its socket; when he let it go, it fell limply back into the water._

_Archie tightened his grip on Maxie's throat and hoisted him out of the ocean with one hand, still laughing—laughing because the man choking and crying in his grasp was not his equal anymore, was broken and bleeding, his fine coat in tatters. Archie had triumphed. The sea was all, and he was the sea, and the might of it beat in him with the rhythm of tides that had flowed since before the birth of the first slimy thing that had crawled up onto the shore to breathe. Archie thrust Maxie back under the waves._

_Maxie struggled, but the struggle was feeble. Archie resisted the urge to strangle him and loosened the pressure against his throat, so that when Maxie tried to breathe he took in water instead of air. Maxie writhed, summoning one last reserve of energy to break free; Archie kept him under. It took little effort._

_After a time, the writhing ceased. Archie kept Maxie pinned, and only when he sensed that the end had finally come did he yank the body out of the water once more to bare his teeth at it. The corpse's head lolled on its shoulder, illuminated by the light from Archie's skin: pale in death, red hair matted, seawater spilling from its nose and mouth._

_It was Shelly._

******•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The fire had gone out, leaving a pile of red embers. Archie sat up. When his eyes had adjusted to the night, he held his hands out in front of him, examining his skin in the starlight; there were no patterns there, no glowing blue lines like the ones in the dream. Tentatively he pressed a palm to his chest, as though he expected to feel the alien pulse of the Red Orb alongside the workings of his own heart, but there was nothing of the sort. He sat listening to the waves for a little while, then got to his feet.

The stars told him it was about four o'clock in the morning. Archie knew them as well as any sailor, if not better, and gazed at the sky as he walked, tracing in his mind the invisible lines that connected the bright points of light to one another to form constellations. Ursaring, Seviper, Kyogre...

He stopped, staring up at that patch of stars. They winked back, bright and cold and distant. He looked down, out across the rolling sea.

It was low tide again, or very nearly so; the beach stretched out three times further than it did at high tide, the damp sand giving way to the dead coral and broken rock that ringed the island, laid bare now beneath the stars. With another look up at the sky, Archie walked out onto the wet sand—straight towards the constellation Kyogre, as though following it—and did not flinch when he stepped up onto a chunk of coral and walked barefoot across the hard reef. He did not halt until he had gone as far as he had done during the day's low tide, where the black water swirled up around his knees. Though he could not see it in the night, he knew he was near the place where the land at last sloped sharply away underwater, dropping off to lead into the deep ocean.

Archie stood motionless. The wind off of the island that teased his hair and shirt collar tasted like salt, and he gazed steadily out at the dark sea, his expression muted. He took a few splashing steps forward, then hesitated, glancing over his shoulder.

The island was half a mile distant now, black against the starry night, and Archie looked from it back to the water—and to the Kyogre in the sky, swimming towards the horizon. He looked as though he understood words in the whisper of the waves, as if the sea were telling him that it had something that he wanted very much, and to find it, he had only to walk until he had to swim, and then swim until he sank.

Archie stood there for a long time, silent and still, as though at a crossroads. Then, when the furthest star in Kyogre touched the tip of the horizon, he turned and waded back towards shore.

******•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

_"No, I really...I have class at eight..."_

_"It's a lecture, Maxie, you can sleep through that shit. C'mon, one more, we gotta finish the bottle."_

_"Oh, fine..."_

_"Heh. Bottoms up."_

_"You're incorrigible."_

_Clink._

_"So...what were you sayin' before?"_

_"About—about what? I've forgotten..."_

_"Some book or somethin' you were reading."_

_"Ah...Sinnoh..."_

_"What about Sinnoh?"_

_"The book. I'm reading a book about Sinnoh...The local culture, you understand. Since I'll be there this summer."_

_"Eh, big deal. Learn that shit by showin' up, I say. S'what I always do."_

_"Well, it's quite...quite interesting, actually. The legends. In Sinnoh."_

_"Like what?"_

_"Well, up in Sinnoh...they say that Pokémon created the whole universe. Time, and space...even life itself..."_

_"Shit. Wow."_

_"Yes..."_

_"You think it's true?"_

_"It's only a legend, Archie."_

_"Well...you're the one who's always going on, saying legends can be true."_

_"Every legend has a grain of truth. That isn't the same as saying it's true."_

_"Yeah, well, same difference. When you get right down to it..."_

_"...what?"_

_"I wonder...Could you could catch a Pokémon like that? I mean...y'know. Like..."_

_"Catch a god?"_

_"Yeah. Hell, if it's just a Pokémon...I mean, why not?"_

_"I suppose...In theory...someone could."_

_"Bet we could. Couple of smart guys like us, we could do anything we wanted."_

_"It's not—not as simple as that."_

_"How come?"_

_"Well, think logically. You'd need...Obviously...well of course you'd need...stuff. To do something like that. Lots and lots of stuff."_

_"Stuff?"_

_"People. Money. Equipment...And time, I suppose..."_

_"Stuff."_

_"Yes."_

_"...Y'know, a buddy of mine...He swears he saw a Lugia out in the Whirl Islands. Couple of years ago."_

_"Really?"_

_"Yeah. I thought they weren't even real before."_

_"He could be lying...or mistaken..."_

_"He fuckin' swears, man."_

_"A Lugia..."_

_"Yeah...It makes you wonder what all is out there, y'know? Crazy shit we don't even know about..."_

******•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Something tapped Archie repeatedly in the temple. Wincing, he slit one eye open.

A blurry yellow mass of fur blocked most of Archie's field of vision, and he blinked himself awake. The yellow thing came into focus.

"What do you want?"

Pikachu scampered away, and Archie winced as he sat up. His back was sore, and he stretched, trying to ease the knot that had formed between his shoulder blades; the sky was indigo. Evidently the sun had only just risen, and was not yet high enough to shed much of its light here, on the western side of the island where his ledge was. Dawn made the water a strange, purple-gray color.

Pikachu returned, carrying a couple of berries, and held one up invitingly. Archie took a moment to notice.

"This for me?"

It nodded and said something; Archie supposed it was repaying him for helping build the fire earlier.

"Thanks, little guy," he said grudgingly, and peeled the thick-skinned berry with some difficulty. He ate it messily, wiping the juice from his hands onto his pants—though this hardly helped, as they were still damp, and crusted with sand. Pikachu nudged another berry toward him with its tail. He ate that one too.

For perhaps a quarter of an hour, they sat in silence, watching the world grow lighter. Pikachu seemed as if it had simply wanted physical company, and sat beside Archie with its ears drooping, sighing once in a while. Archie watched shades of pink and gold creeping from behind to spread slowly over the sky.

"You wanna know something, little guy?"

Pikachu looked up at him.

"Pika?"

"We were friends once. Maxie and me, I mean...back in the day. I guess it was what—fifteen years ago? Fuck. Feels like forever."

He gazed out at the water, still dark even under the lightening sky. Then, quite unexpectedly, he burst out laughing. Pikachu started, and Archie himself had an oddly strained expression, as though not even he knew what was so funny. When he trailed off, he rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, shaking his head.

"It's just weird," he said, by way of explanation. "Thinking about it now. Feels like it wasn't me, almost. Like we were both different guys back then. Guess we were, in a way."

Pikachu asked a question. Archie shrugged.

"What's so funny? Ehh, well...I was just remembering, this one time..."

He trailed off again. Pikachu flicked its ears.

"Piikachu? Pipi?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Chu?"

Archie scowled at Pikachu, then at the distant waves, as if debating with himself whether to share the thought that had made him laugh. At last he relented.

"I took him fishing once," he said. "Some buddies and I were going out deep-sea fishing for Huntail, and so I invited him along. Didn't work very well."

"Kachu?"

"Well, he spent the whole time being seasick, just about. And when he got over that, he couldn't land anything. Cast just fine, but as soon as he got a bite, he'd freak out and reel it wrong—snapped the line three or four times. So finally I told him, just fuckin' hold on to it, just keep the next one on the line and don't let go of the damn rod, and one of us would reel it in for him.

"So about half an hour later, he gets another bite—a hard bite—and he doesn't let go for once. It seemed like a big one, so I told him to hand it over so I could reel it in, and he wouldn't do it. Idiot couldn't have wrestled a Barboach up outta the water without tangling his line, but he wanted to prove to us he could do it, so he just kept pulling..."

Archie smirked.

"Pi?"

"All of a sudden, he goes flying," said Archie. _"Boom. _He'd hooked a full-grown Mantine. Thing shot up from under the boat and dragged him ten yards before he had the sense to finally let go of the pole, and then there he was, flailing around in the water while it shot bubbles at him. Funniest damn thing I've ever seen."

Archie laughed again, though not as loud. Pikachu spoke sternly.

"Yeah, we went and got him," said Archie. "After we pulled ourselves together from laughing so hard. Shit, he was a sight. Wouldn't go out fishing with me after that, either...Guess I don't blame him, heh."

But the smile that had crossed Archie's face faded even as he dwelt on the memory. His expression darkened.

"All of that was a long time ago, though. Doesn't matter anymore...bastard's dead now. Him and everybody else." He paused, his brow furrowing, then looked over at Pikachu and asked, "Did you ever meet Shelly, little guy?"

"Pika?"

"Red hair down to here." Archie indicated the length against his own side. "Real good-looking. My second-in-command. She was there, back on Monsu with everybody else."

"Pi." It nodded.

Archie sighed roughly and returned his attention to the distant sea, turning a deep blue under the new morning light.

"She was good to me," Archie said at last. "Never screwed up or backed down. Knew how to keep people in line."

He rubbed the side of his fist across his mouth, leaving sand in his mustache and beard, then rested his elbow on his bent knee.

"You can't fuckin' trust people, you know?" He frowned. "But I trusted her—more than anybody. And she never let me down once in her whole life."

Another sigh. When he spoke again, he sounded almost angry.

"Never coming back, is she, little guy?"

Pikachu's ears twitched, and it said something; Archie looked over at it, then shook his head to indicate he did not understand.

They watched the sun come up—or rather, watched the world grow brighter, because the sun was rising behind them, on the other side of the island. When it had grown so light that there was no pink left on the horizon, Pikachu shook its head and scratched behind one of its ears, then got up and made for the other end of the ledge. Before leaping down the cliff, it looked quizzically over its shoulder at Archie.

"Pika_chu?"_

"Nah, you go on ahead, little guy. I'll come down later."

Pikachu blinked at him, then turned and hopped down the rocks. A few moments later, Archie saw it scamper up the beach below, leaving tiny pawprints in the damp sand that were soon erased by the waves.

Archie did not move. He sat on the ledge for another hour, wondering whether Matt had gone to investigate Monsu Island, and whether he'd found any bodies.


	12. Chapter 12

Wallace's pronouncement did not meet with much reaction, except a sneeze from Maxie. They could see nothing of the Cave of Origin outside the circle of light thrown by Steven's lamp, and though Steven raised it higher, all it revealed was wet rock on the edge of the water they had emerged from. The ground sloped upwards, leading away deeper into the wall of the crater.

A rattling noise startled everyone. Lance had unzipped his waterproof bag and begun extracting equipment from it: flashlights, electronics, tangles of wires.

"We need to get going," he said, clicking a flashlight on. "We don't even know what we're looking for, so the sooner we get this party started, the better. Here."

He tossed Shelly the lit flashlight; she caught it deftly.

"Everybody grab a light and a radio. I don't have enough cameras for everybody—how many do you have, Steven?"

"Just one," he admitted, shrugging. Lance clicked on another flashlight, but nothing happened; he rapped it firmly against a rock, and it sputtered to life.

"We'll split into pairs to cover more ground and document as much as possible. Juan, how many floors are there again?"

"Three, including this one."

"Then you and I will head up to the highest floor. Wallace, Steven—you two can take this floor. The rest of you," he looked to the others, "head up to the middle level. We'll meet back here in two hours and report what we've found, and then we'll concentrate on the best lead we've come up with by then. There's no way we can canvas this whole place in one go. Come on."

As he spoke, he stacked equipment into piles beside the backpack, occasionally stopping to untangle wires from one another. When the backpack was empty, he tossed it aside, then scooped up an armful of equipment and set it on a rock, sifting through it. He paused to wring water out of his shirt before tucking a walkie-talkie into his belt.

"So what are we looking for, if I may ask?" said Wallace.

"Answers," replied Steven. "I'll explain on the way. But you know this place...is there anything unusual in here? Any sealed chambers or suspicious artifacts or anything?"

"Hmm...Not that I've ever seen, no. But there are a good many carvings, and a few structures."

"Carvings?"

"Yes. Murals and such, and writing, though I've never known what any of it said. Exquisite craftsmanship, and quite well-preserved."

"That sounds like a good place to start," said Lance. He took a photograph at random with a pocket camera; the sudden flash was blinding. Apparently the picture had not come out well, because he frowned at the view screen. "We have to document as much of that material as possible. Whatever it says, we need to know." He deleted the photo. "Come on, let's get moving."

Everyone loaded up with equipment. When Tabitha was handed a walkie-talkie, he examined it with his flashlight, looking displeased.

"These aren't going to work," he announced.

Lance looked up at him. "What?"

Tabitha clicked the walkie-talkie on and off with a contemptuous look.

"These are regular short-wave radios, they're not going to work in here. Maybe if the caverns are really big, but we still won't be able to communicate between floors. We need something that emits induction waves."

"Well, that's what I told the police," said Lance sarcastically, "but unfortunately they were all out of—induction transmitters. Look, just take one, it's the only thing we've got. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work."

Tabitha scowled and clipped the transmitter to his belt, turning away. Steven released a Pokémon; the light solidified into a large Metang, its polished body reflecting the flashlight beams. He hooked an arm around one of its legs.

"Back here in two hours?" he asked Lance.

"That's the plan. You and Wallace headed off?"

"So it seems," answered Wallace. He climbed up onto Metang's back. "Steven, I hope you'll enlighten me as to the nature of this expedition. It's supposedly my task to prevent the Cave of Origin from receiving quite so many visitors."

"I'll explain everything," said Steven. Metang began to hover away. "But, for a start—are there any unusual rock formations on this floor? You know...out of professional interest."

"Ah, Steven...I'll civilize you one of these days."

"You and what army?"

They continued to spar as Metang floated away over the rocky floor, soon nothing of them visible but the erratic light from Steven's lantern. Juan chuckled at them as they disappeared. Lance had ignored the entire exchange in favor of sorting through leftover equipment on the floor, and when he stood up again, he addressed the rest of them.

"All right—Juan, you ready?"

"Quite." Juan inclined his head.

"What about the three of you?"

Tabitha and Shelly exchanged looks; Maxie, however, rolled up the sleeves of his wet shirt, then said, "Actually, if it isn't any trouble...I would prefer to accompany the two of you."

"Sir?" came Tabitha's voice; Maxie ignored him. Lance looked mildly surprised, but shrugged.

"Fine with me. But we need to get going. Juan, do you know the way up to the top floor?"

"That I do, though I admit it's been a while. There is a certain place there that I think will be of relevance to our search."

"Then lead the way," said Lance, holding up his flashlight. "Do we need to fly on Dragonite?"

"That won't be necessary; it's not an arduous walk. There was once a path; I suppose it's there still."

"How do we get to the middle floor?" Tabitha asked him.

"Follow along with us. There is a place where the path forks away; that end leads off to a building of some sort, up on the next level, which I think might be useful to look at. Heading straight instead will take the rest of us where we'd like to go."

"Sounds good," said Lance. He passed his flashlight between the five of them in turn, nodding. "All right, let's head out, then. We want to do as much as we can before the end of the day; I don't wanna camp in here overnight. Remember—meet back here in two hours and report on what you've found."

•**·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Shelly and Tabitha walked for what seemed like thirty minutes, though in reality it was probably more like ten. The darkness of the Cave of Origin was absolute; if light and air entered it from outside, it was on some level higher than where they were, and the air they breathed tasted stale and strange. There was something like a path that ran along the bare cavern floor, a strip of ground made smooth by the passage of many feet long ago, and Shelly and Tabitha walked side-by-side along it in silence, the sound of their own footsteps bouncing away and echoing unevenly in the huge space. Every fifteen or twenty feet, there appeared on either side of them a smooth pillar carved out of the living rock, rising up seamlessly from the cavern floor. These were the only convincing evidence that they were heading somewhere in particular, and not just wandering aimlessly through the bones of the crater, following an ancient footpath with no beginning or end, leaving a trail of water behind them from their dripping clothes.

Neither of them spoke. Shelly, for her part, had nothing to say, and kept her flashlight trained on the floor ahead of them, the better to dodge any obstacles—though there seemed to be none. The path curved this way and that around protrusions in the floor that might have otherwise blocked their way. It was only when Tabitha halted suddenly that she stopped too, turning her attention to what was in the distance instead of the ground at her feet.

"Bingo," said Tabitha, turning up the beam of his flashlight.

It was a building. Three stories tall, it seemed, like the pillars that led to it, to have been carved right out of the cavern itself, emerging from and yet melting into the side of the wall. The whole surface of it had been carved with a curious pattern of lines that looked vaguely familiar to Shelly; she wondered where she had seen that pattern before.

"Well," she said aloud. "This looks like something important."

They exchanged looks, then moved forward; shoulder-to-shoulder they approached the building, which loomed empty above them as they approached. They both stopped in its shadow, surveying it with professional interest.

"This looks like Dewford Island," Tabitha said aloud, as if to himself. Shelly glanced over her shoulder at him.

"What do you mean?"

Tabitha craned his neck back to gaze at the upper reaches of the intricately carved walls.

"I took a squad out to Dewford Island to look at a cavern awhile back, and your team followed us. Remember? This place looks like that shrine, only..."

"Bigger," Shelly finished. "And older."

She remembered the place, now that he mentioned it. She had written it off in her mind after they'd found it wasn't what they were looking for, but tried to recall it now, comparing it to the structure around her. Tabitha was right: the architecture was similar. Less sophisticated, more crudely carved, but similar. It looked, too, like the temple at Monsu Island; the style was not identical, but close enough to speak to the single culture that had built them both, though at different points in time. With her flashlight's beam, Shelly traced one of the lines carved into the face of the building, following it until it was lost in the darkness above.

"Think we'll find anything in here?" she asked. Behind her, Tabitha scowled, wringing water out of the bottom of his undershirt.

"We'd sure as hell better. It's the Cave of Origin."

They exchanged a look, and a mutual understanding passed between them. They had both spent years in vain pursuit of this place, thinking it held something they sought; it was only now, when those beings had been found and woken and had overwhelmed them, that the location of the Cave of Origin was revealed to them both with an ironic swiftness. And as before, but with a new urgency, they both hoped it contained a power that they could use for their own ends. The shape of that power was unknown to them—it might be information, or an object, or something inconceivable—but Shelly and Tabitha both knew that if they found no answers here, the trail would go cold. The Cave of Origin was their first, last, and best hope for undoing what they had done.

"Well," said Shelly, "I suppose we'd better search these ruins."

"Sounds like a plan."

Again they exchanged looks, though this time they were a little belligerent, and Tabitha gestured with his flashlight towards the yawning entrance before them.

"Ladies first," he said. Shelly tossed her head.

"I'm waiting, Tabitha."

She put just enough emphasis on his name to make the joke obvious, and for a fraction of a second, Tabitha looked flustered. But it was only for a fraction of a second.

"I'm sorry," he said sarcastically. "I should've guessed you'd be too scared."

"Don't kid yourself, commander." But Shelly could not help but glance at the high cavern ceiling, or where she supposed it to be in the dark. She tried not to imagine how many tons of cold rock separated her from the sky.

"Don't like being underground, do you, Shelly?"

"Only as much as you like being underwater, Tabitha."

They squared off. When Tabitha spoke, he sounded strange: at once grim and yet nonchalant, as though trying to feign indifference about what he was saying.

"Strange to be working alone, isn't it? Can't say I like it much."

"You and me both. Although..."

"Though what?"

Shelly regarded him curiously, frowning. "Shouldn't you be with your leader?"

Tabitha's grip on his flashlight tightened, making the circle of light jerk against the wall.

"Let's go," he said shortly, and swept inside the shrine.

•**·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Maxie set his flashlight beside him on the boulder and removed his shoes. His socks were still wet, like the rest of him, and he grimaced as he wrung them both out, debating whether to even put them back on. A sneeze escaped him. He shivered and tugged at the cold shirt sticking to his skin, covered now in goosebumps, and tucked his legs up to his chest, his bare feet chill. It occurred to him that he had not eaten since early the previous evening. His stomach complained, and he sighed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the lingering taste of saltwater making him thirsty, too. Deciding that he wasn't going to get up immediately, he turned off his flashlight to save the battery. The world went black when he did.

He felt sorry for himself. Sitting alone in the pitch darkness of the Cave of Origin, wet and hungry and cold...Well, it was not how he would have supposed this week to end, had someone earlier asked him to guess it. Maxie sneezed again, shuddered, and wrapped his arms around his knees, hoping he didn't fall ill; it was the only way his immediate situation could get worse.

For a few minutes he sat there, shivering, once in a while catching hints of light and voices from elsewhere in the massive cavern as Juan and Lance moved further ahead. Under other circumstances he would have been delightedly exploring until his legs could no longer carry him; he had dreamed of seeing the fabled Cave of Origin for almost his whole life. But it was difficult now to muster any enthusiasm. Were it possible at the moment, he would have readily traded the secret of the Cave of Origin for a hot meal and dry, clean clothes.

Maxie sighed and ran a hand through his red hair, usually sleek, now hanging lank and wet and filthy. What a sight he must be by now, after everything that had happened since Monsu Island. He shivered again, closed his eyes (it made no difference in the darkness) and allowed himself to pretend that if he opened them he would be sitting at his well-ordered desk in his bathrobe, fresh from the shower, a cup of tea steaming at his elbow and a stack of paperwork waiting for his inspection. It was childish, but just now he had nothing else to enjoy, and so Maxie indulged this fantasy, letting himself miss the life he had taken years to build for himself. Never again would he sit at that desk, or wear that bathrobe, or hit the blinking intercom to fill the office with Courtney's annoyed voice. The only shred of that world left to him, at the moment, was the presence of Tabitha. And really...

Maxie frowned to himself in the darkness. He was being stupid by ignoring Tabitha, and knew it. He wasn't even angry with him, not really; there was simply an odd, twisted satisfaction in keeping him at arm's length, even if Maxie knew he was doing himself no favors by dismissing the only person who still had any respect for him. He had lost control of everything else in his life; taking it out on Tabitha was pointless, but it was the only straw he had to grasp at. Besides (he thought, rubbing his temple) when one got down to it, he was simply hastening the inevitable. Tabitha was running on autopilot, but that could not last forever. Sooner or later, his sense of self-preservation would kick in, and Maxie would be left alone to deal with what he had done. If anything, he was helping Tabitha by pushing him closer to the realization that Team Magma no longer meant anything.

"_Maxie!"_

He started, knocking his knees against his chin and in doing so accidentally biting his tongue. Maxie winced, then found his flashlight and turned it on, pointing it toward another beam of light that was waving from behind a bend several dozen yards away. The voice came again; it was Lance's.

"Are you still over there, Maxie? Come take a look at this!"

Maxie sighed. After a brief debate with himself, he put his damp socks back on, then donned his shoes and staggered to his feet, headed in the direction of Lance's call while using his own flashlight to illuminate the ground before him. Soon he had rounded the bend and come upon Lance and Juan, who were both standing twenty feet back from the high cavern wall, studying it from a distance. Lance looked intent, almost grim; Juan, however, looked mildly pleased. He might have been in an art museum admiring a favorite piece, had his clothes not still been wet. When Maxie appeared, their attention turned to him.

"There you are," said Lance, and jerked his head at the wall, making the beam of his flashlight wobble. "Come look this over, will you? It goes further back that way, but this part looks like the centerpiece. See here."

He aimed his light at the wall. Maxie added his own, and the combined strength of the beams illuminated enough of the wall for Maxie to suddenly realize that it was carved. Not deeply—the engravings were only an inch deep, at the most—but the workmanship was such that the figures seemed to leap from the wall, humans and Pokémon alike. In one place towered a ten-foot image of Groudon, bellowing from the lip of an overflowing volcano; a great yellow gem had been mounted into the rock as its eye, and flashed brightly under the beam of their flashlights like a lost star.

"This looks useful," said Lance matter-of-factly. "Wonder if there's—ah-ha, there we are."

He had directed his flashlight to the left, and hit upon the likeness of Kyogre, gliding beneath the waves. It, too, had a gem for an eye, and the two carvings had been positioned so that the creatures were gazing directly at one another across a vast gulf. But the space in the middle, a good fifteen feet square, was not empty. Some careful hand in days long past had etched it with rows and rows of symbols, each a foot tall, like an enormous plaque or proclamation. Figures of humans and Pokémon framed the top and bottom, and seemed to extend away on either side of Kyogre and Groudon in an odd procession.

"I'm going to go look and see how far down this thing goes," said Lance. "Back in a bit."

He strode away, his wet boots making an odd squishing noise that echoed faintly. Maxie returned his attention to the wall, gazing with a deep frown at the Groudon carved there before puzzling over the lines of writing, following them with his flashlight as though highlighting sentences in a book.

Maxie started pacing. He walked back and forth in front of the mural with measured steps, the beam of his flashlight following the lines of carved symbols, his brow furrowed. Once in a while he paused, staring at a particular section, and spoke quietly to himself, sounding out strange syllables. He was so engrossed in this that he did not notice Juan approach.

"Maxie, is it?"

Maxie looked over his shoulder. The Gym Leader was watching him with interest, his flashlight pointed at the ground between them.

"I was simply observing your work." Juan nodded to the wall, then indicated the carvings with his flashlight. "You can read these inscriptions?"

"Hm? Ah, no, not really...I recognize a few words here and there, but otherwise..." Maxie grimaced. "I never could do the translations without a reference. There was never a need."

"I take it you are a scholar, then?"

Maxie hesitated.

"I wouldn't say so, no. But ruins like these," he passed the beam of his flashlight over the mural, "have been my business for some time. I suppose I know more than a layman would."

"I should certainly think so, if you can decipher even a word of this." Juan sounded impressed. "Tell me, can you understand anything written here?"

Maxie paced slowly by the face of the mural, studying carefully each carving that fell under the beam of his flashlight. Suddenly he stopped.

"This word here," he indicated it with his flashlight, _"rubin—_it literally means 'ruby,' but it probably refers to the Red Orb. The Orbs are called many things in descriptions, and that is the most common word. The Blue Orb is called _sapfir—_sapphire...ah, here." He moved the light over a little way. "They are mentioned together, naturally. What it says about them, I do not know, but it would probably be worthwhile to document this text."

"Ruby and sapphire..." muttered Juan. "Exquisite terms."

"For incredible objects." Maxie frowned up at the mural. "Well, with any luck, this says something of use to us. I suppose we won't know for certain until we get a translation done, however...and who knows how long that will take." He stifled a sigh. "I worry that we don't have sufficient time. Groudon and Kyogre could clash again any day. I expect it's only residual weariness from their hibernation that's kept them apart this long."

"So they really are what has been causing all of this..."

Juan and Maxie both gazed up at the carved wall with thoughtful expressions, Maxie's much more sober. Juan held a hand to his strong chin.

"Extraordinary," he said. "Absolutely extraordinary. To have legends come to life...But I suppose it's not quite like that, is it? They always existed, they were simply..."

"Asleep. Or hibernating, or...dormant. Whatever you want to call it."

"And you woke them both, correct?"

Maxie did not confirm this; he did not have the energy to scrape together all of the rehearsed defenses lying in wait at the bottom of his mind. Instead he sighed and continued studying the carved wall until the sound of footfalls reached him; Lance appeared soon thereafter, striding across the uneven floor with a harried purposefulness that seemed out of place in the huge, empty cavern.

"Goes on for a while," Lance reported. He pointed his flashlight back behind him. "Mostly pictures, though. Guess that could be useful, but I'm more interested in this." He nodded to the writing on the wall.

"It mentions the Orbs," Maxie informed him. "I can read enough of it to tell that much."

"Well, then we'd better copy it down."

Lance grimaced at the dual likenesses of Kyogre and Groudon, the gems of their eyes flashing fire-bright when he shone his flashlight on each in turn. Juan looked to him.

"Should I fetch the others from the upper levels?" he asked. "If we intend to concentrate our efforts here, that is."

"No, the three of us can handle this right now—the others might have found something too. When we meet up again we can tell everybody about this. Maxie—are you sure this writing talks about the Orbs?"

"I am as certain as I can be, under the circumstances."

"All right." Lance returned his attention to the wall, his gaze hard, as though trying to intimidate it into giving up its secrets. "Let's just hope that this says something we don't already know."

•**·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

No one else was there when Lance, Juan, and Maxie returned to the lowest level of the Cave of Origin. They stood waiting at the edge of the black water for nearly a quarter of an hour before a rushing noise and light overhead attracted their attention; in unison they looked up to see Steven and Wallace riding Metang, each clutching one of its legs as it hovered. When it landed nearby, Steven recalled it to its Pokéball; Wallace strode up to them.

"Find anything interesting?" Lance asked him. Wallace bowed a little.

"That depends on one's point of view," he said. "We found nothing that seemed relevant to our search. But I don't think Steven will permit me to say we saw nothing interesting."

"This cave is fascinating," said Steven at once. "There's these red and blue crystals growing up along the walls here; I can't figure them out. They look like quartz but they can't be, I've never once heard of quartz developing in a lava tube—which is what this place is, or started off as a long time ago. But a lot of the tunneling was done by Pokémon. Probably had to have whole teams of Ground-types working together, and even then, an excavation this size must have taken generations. And there are tubular lava helictites—"

But they never found out what these were, or what was so interesting about them; the sight of distant beams of light made Steven break off, turning to face them. Half a minute later, Shelly and Tabitha appeared, and Lance hailed them as they approached.

"Hey, you two! Find anything on your level?"

"There's a stone building on the edge of the middle cavern," Shelly reported. "We've both seen ruins like it before, and it looks like a shrine or altar of some kind inside. It's pretty big."

"Anything in there look useful? Carvings, writing?"

"Both," said Tabitha, "and lots of them."

"Great. You take them down?"

"As much as we could, but there's more."

"All right."

The seven of them stood in a circle, their combined lanterns and flashlights forming a blaze of light around them like a protective shield, keeping at bay whatever mysterious forces called the Cave of Origin home. The sloshing of seawater in the pool beside them was the only other noise in the vast, black space besides their own voices, reverberating eerily.

"Okay then," said Lance, addressing everyone; his raised voice echoed. "It sounds like the second and third levels are our best bet. We'll all focus our attention on those for the rest of the day and document as much of the ruins as we can. I want to send a good chunk of stuff off to HQ tonight and get it back before we keep at this. It's possible this place won't tell us anything that we don't already know, and if that's the case, then I've gotta come up with another plan ASAP instead of wasting time in here." He looked around, panning his flashlight across his audience for good measure. "Everybody got that?"

They all nodded. Lance gave a few more orders, and soon the party was setting off again, this time as a group, to split up when they reached the division between the second and third floors of the cave. In single file, with Wallace leading the way, they set off up the rocky floor, the darkness and silence of the massive cavern pressing against them palpably. The noise they made as they walked did not dispel the silence; instead, the way it echoed heightened their collective sense of being small, scrabbling intruders into a huge and ancient secret.

Maxie was last. He felt a little dizzy, and knew it was from hunger; he stopped and pinched his temples with one hand until the feeling passed. When he made as if to start forward after Juan, he realized there was light coming from behind him, and he turned around, wondering whether someone had left their flashlight.

Steven had lagged behind. A deep chink in the cavern wall had caught his attention, and he was peering at it with his nose an inch from the stone, shining his flashlight into the depths of the crevice.

"Have you found something?" Maxie asked.

Steven glanced over.

"Huh? Oh, no. I was just looking at the wall here. There's some really interesting striations in the back of this opening. Sort of wish I could take a sample." He returned his attention to it, then added, to himself, "Aggron couldn't get this out, though, he'd smash it up..."

"I suppose you haven't got a crack hammer?"

"No, it's at home—well, underwater. Didn't have time to grab anything except my gad points and chisels."

Steven stopped himself, then twisted around to look at Maxie with a puzzled expression. In response, Maxie explained, "I have something of an interest in geology."

"Really." Maxie could tell Steven was not certain how to take the revelation that the two of them had this in common. "Guess that makes sense. 'Team Magma,' and all that."

"I've always been fascinated by the Earth." Maxie aimed the beam of his flashlight a little higher, studying the layers of rock. "Ever since I was a child. I had quite an expansive rock collection at one point in time."

"What happened to it?"

"Well...When I committed myself fully to Team Magma some years ago, I got rid of most of my possessions. You understand, it seemed prudent...But I gave the bulk of my collection anonymously to the Mt. Chimney Mineralogical and Lapidary Society. I've no idea what they've done with it since, of course; I let my membership lapse. I doubt very much that they've kept it all."

"Yeah, they sold off some of it."

Now it was Maxie's turn to look surprised.

"How do you know?"

"Because I bought a few pieces," Steven said. "At least, I'm assuming they were yours. Listed as being from an anonymous donor, part of a larger collection...Were there a lot of samples from up in Sinnoh?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. I had quite a few specimens from Iron Island and the surrounding area; I spent a few summers digging there as an undergraduate. Of course, that was quite some time ago..."

Maxie and Steven sized each other up. It was hard to tell who seemed more bemused by this coincidence, and Steven at last shook his head.

"Well, small world, huh?"

"So it would seem." Maxie studied Steven. "Are you a geologist, then?"

"Not professionally, no. Just a hobby I picked up from my dad." Steven tucked his chisel back into his bag.

"Then what is it that you do professionally, if I may ask?"

"Me?" The younger man shrugged. "Oh, nothing much. Hunt for rocks, mostly. Train Pokémon. I like Steel-types." He indicated the row of Pokéballs clipped to his belt. "Used to be pretty active with the League, but it cut into my rock-hunting time, so I retired. Wallace is the Champion now."

It took Maxie a moment to realize what Steven had said.

"You—were the Champion of the Hoenn League?"

"For a while, yeah." Steven appraised him. "Not big into sports, huh?"

"Well, no, to be perfectly frank...And in any case, I never really had the time to follow such things. Team Magma's mission took all of my time."

"Mission..."

Steven slung his backpack over his shoulder and surveyed Maxie with a slight frown around the corners of his mouth. It was quite obvious he had something to say, and so Maxie waited for it. When the question came, Steven's tone was puzzled.

"What's the point?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I just don't understand." He adjusted the strap of his backpack. "Team Magma...What's the point in trying to capture a super-ancient Pokémon like Groudon?"

Maxie frowned and rubbed the sides of his mouth with one hand, exhaling. It was the first time someone had asked him this directly, though he had been waiting for it for days. He collected himself and cleared his throat.

"Since you're so curious, you deserve an explanation," he said, with much more self-assurance than he felt. "I never wanted this—this travesty, you understand. Groudon was supposed to be under our control, once we found it, and we could then use its powers for everyone's benefit. Team Magma...I grant that we usually had to operate outside of the law to achieve our goals, but I never once intended to cause this sort of destruction."

"That's funny." Steven did not look amused. "Because judging from everything I know about you, Team Magma was only ever a bunch of crooks. I've never once heard of you guys doing anything but causing trouble."

"Perhaps it may seem that way. But why on Earth do you think I'm here now?"

"I don't know. But it seems a little too convenient that you would have a miraculous change of heart the minute you realized that you couldn't control Groudon."

"What are you insinuating?" Maxie asked. "You think I'd like to...reclaim Groudon somehow, I suppose?"

"I think you'd like to stay out of prison." Steven studied him in the harsh white lamplight. "And kissing Lance's ass is the fastest way to do it. He's over the Jennys' heads with the G-Men, you know that."

"I know that _now. _I only met the man three days ago, you can hardly expect me to have concocted some sort of elaborate scheme to deceive him."

"I don't know what to expect from you, actually," said Steven, "so I'm going to play it safe and keep my reservations. Can you blame me?"

Maxie frowned at the younger man.

"No, perhaps not. But all the same..." He sighed, shivered in the chill cavern air, and ran a hand through his hair. "Well, you're free to do as you wish. But I would hope that you would at least have the courtesy to respect me as an ally."

"Give me a good reason to."

For the first time, a flicker of annoyance crossed Maxie's lined face.

"I don't think I'm under any obligation to justify my decisions to you," he said. "And in any event, I never planned for any of these horrors to happen. That was not the reason I created Team Magma. Now, I grant that I had always considered the possibility that some—unfortunate necessities, would perhaps occur, but let me assure you, this nightmare is beyond anything I had ever conceived."

"That's noble of you," said Steven dryly. "What was the cutoff number?"

"What?"

"How many people was too many to threaten and kidnap and steal from, before you decided you'd gone too far? Or did you not realize there was a problem until people died?"

They stared at each other. Steven raised the lamp a little higher, casting long shadows over his face that made his light blue eyes flash oddly. Now that he knew what Steven was, Maxie suddenly glimpsed beneath his relaxed visage the former Champion of the Hoenn League, a man whose soul was strong as steel.

"Well, I never intended...That is to say..." Maxie faltered, then asked, "How do you think I feel about all of this?"

"How _you_ feel? Thousands of people and Pokémon are dead, and you want me to feel sorry for _you?"_

"That's not what..."

But Maxie trailed off. That was what he had meant, really, and the arrogance of it was laid bare before him by Steven's cold gaze. Steven shook his head and turned away, keeping the lamp raised.

"Look, Lance might have a reason to trust you people, but I don't. You got that?" He looked over his shoulder. "So don't try anything. I know you say you didn't want this to happen—and honestly, I believe you—but I'll be keeping an eye on you anyway. It would be stupid not to."

He started walking. Maxie hesitated, then cleared his throat and said, in a voice that echoed faintly in the cavern, "I regret the loss of your home. On Mossdeep Island."

"This has nothing to do with my house." Steven halted, then added, without looking back, "I'm one of the lucky ones."

The silent sound of death rang louder than any direct accusation. Steven dimmed the lamp a notch, then moved away once more, his wet shoes squeaking on the rocky floor of the cavern as he headed back up the slope. Maxie was left alone in the darkness, watching the swinging lamplight cast strange, dancing shadows ahead as it grew smaller, and Steven's footsteps grew fainter.

"I am sorry," Maxie said quietly. No one heard him.


	13. Chapter 13

By the time they all resurfaced on the edge of the crater, it was beginning to be evening. The high walls of the caldera blocked most of the low sun's rays, making it seem even later than it was, and painting the white city of Sootopolis with deep purple shadows; only the uppermost rim of the crater retained a crown of gold. In the distance, the harbor looked even busier than it had been that morning. Ships flitted to and fro over the water like tiny Surskit.

The explorers were so weary that the journey back to the pier seemed to take just as long, if not longer, than the initial swim out. They attracted just as much attention, as well; more than once someone leaned out of a passing ship to call at them as they swam, clinging doggedly to Juan's Pokémon. When they at last reached the city proper, passerby stopped to stare at them as one by one they emerged from the water and stood dripping wet on the pier, wringing out their sodden hair and clothes as though going for a dip out in the harbor were the most ordinary thing in the world. Juan recalled all of his Pokémon.

"So what's the plan now?" Steven asked, setting his dripping backpack down beside him. "I'm starving."

"You and me both," said Lance, "but I'm off to the police station. Gotta borrow their equipment and get all of this sent off to HQ. Nothing we can do until we hear back and get a gauge for whether any of this is useful information. Juan, your gym's up that way, right?"

"Indeed. You're welcome to stay the night, once you've seen to your business."

"I was planning on it, thanks. Steven, what about you? You going to Juan's?"

"Nah, I'll crash with Wallace. Let us know as soon as you hear back about the info."

"Will do. Probably won't be until tomorrow morning, at the earliest."

"What about us?" asked Shelly.

Lance looked over at Shelly, Maxie, and Tabitha; it was apparent he had not yet taken this question into consideration. Juan spoke up.

"I would be happy to have the three of you, if you need a place to stay," he said, bowing. "I have more than enough room at the gym. And if I'm not mistaken, Sebastian has some of your things from this morning, yes? He'll have cleaned them by now, and I'm sure you'd like them back."

"We would," said Tabitha at once, squeezing water out of his dark undershirt, usually covered by his red hood. Juan nodded to him, then at Lance.

"You have no objections?"

"No. I'll be over as soon as I'm done."

Wallace and Steven departed on foot; Lance, on Dragonite. The former two disappeared up the sloping street, and Juan watched them go, then turned his attention to the sky.

"A very diligent man, isn't he?" Juan remarked of Lance, as Dragonite flew away, carrying both backpacks full of equipment. "I suppose that's why he opted to join the G-Men."

Shelly pulled her wet hair back and tied it with her bandana, but her damp bangs still fell across her eyes; she pushed them aside.

"Do all you Pokémon League people know each other?" she asked Juan. Juan shrugged.

"Mm...not necessarily, no. But one makes connections, at conferences and events. And Wallace was my apprentice for many years, so I've met a number of people outside Hoenn's league through him. He travels quite extensively on contest business as well. Actually, I'm surprised he's managed to sneak away from his publicist for this long."

There were fewer people out and about now, but the harbor was still crowded, and more than one person stopped on their way past to exchange a word with Juan. After one of these quick conversations, Juan bowed at the receding figure (a financier of some sort) and turned to the others.

"Well. If we've no other business here, then I suggest we get going," he said. "The water taxis are not operating, so I'm afraid we'll be walking to the gym; I apologize for the inconvenience. It's a good twenty minutes away, uphill."

"It's not like we have any choice," said Shelly.

"A fair observation." Juan inclined his head at her, then asked them, "Shall we, then?"

No one answered, and so Juan set off, the other three following behind him as he strode up one of the main streets, heading directly up the side of the crater. Despite the presence of people, the city still looked oddly vacant. Everything on the waterfront had been hardest hit by the hurricane, and so most of the shops and restaurants and hotels that they passed were dark inside, many with broken windows; to see everything empty so early in the evening was uncanny.

"A sad business, this," Juan remarked, when they passed what had once been an outdoor cafe. "To have such a powerful storm hit right after an earthquake...It was more than most were prepared for, I'm afraid."

He did not receive any commentary on this, and after a beat of silence, turned to face the others as he walked.

"Is this your first time in Sootopolis?" Juan asked—ostensibly of all of them, though he only looked to Shelly. She waited for someone else to answer first.

"No," said Maxie at last. "I've been here a few times, though not since...Well, it's been a while."

"Well, I'm sorry your return has to have come at such an unhappy time." Juan's expression softened, and he raised his chin as he walked, gazing up at the city stretching away above and around them. There were almost no lights on in any of the whitewashed buildings they passed. "Ordinarily, Sootopolis is the most beautiful city in Hoenn, by my judgement. Granted, I may be a little biased..."

He continued talking as they walked up the winding streets, pointing out notable establishments and commenting on storm damage that he found particularly tragic. He seemed to know everything about the city, and be known by everyone in it, because people waved to him as he passed, and twice he stopped to speak with someone who seemed to be of particular importance. After one of these brief pauses for conversation, they started walking again, but had not gone far before Tabitha suddenly halted, looking around.

Maxie had lagged behind and was gasping for breath, gripping the wall of a nearby shop for support with one hand and clutching at his side with the other. He fell to one knee. Tabitha pushed past Shelly, but before he could do anything, Maxie had grit his teeth and staggered back to his feet. He let go of his side and passed his hand over his face.

"Sir, are you all—"

"I'm quite all right, thank you, commander."

Juan and Shelly had stopped walking and were looking back at the two of them, Juan with a concerned expression.

"Are you feeling well? You look terribly pale."

"It's fine." Maxie grimaced. "I'm...a little tired, that's all. I haven't eaten today..."

Juan raised his eyebrows, then looked between the three of them; Shelly and Tabitha said nothing, but Juan seemed to gather that this was true of the both of them as well. He shook his head.

"Well, that won't do at all. I'll have Sebastian prepare something once we reach the house." To Maxie, he added, "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'll be fine." To prove this, he started forward again; after a bit, everyone else followed, and Tabitha kept pace a little distance from him, looking worried. Juan took the lead again, but he seemed to make an effort to walk slowly, and so it was another quarter of an hour before he at last turned onto a dark side street, announcing they were nearly there.

Instead of becoming a dead end, the side street passed by a few rows of buildings before suddenly opening up again, revealing a vast expanse of property that seemed out of place in the middle of the crowded city—almost like a park. Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly stared.

"Welcome to my home," said Juan cordially. "The Sootopolis Gym is around the back."

Juan was old money, that much was obvious. A wrought-iron gate tangled with creeping roses framed the path to the mansion that evidently served him as both home and gym, the vast space between the house and gate filled by an assortment of fountains and artfully trimmed bushes, made bedraggled by the recent storm but still impressive in scope. The fact that there was a lawn at all hinted at the sheer expense involved, as all of the sod had to have been imported into the crater. Juan unlocked the gate and swept forward; Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly exchanged looks before following. When they had made it halfway up the path, the front door opened; an older gentleman in a butler's uniform stood framed in the light coming from the entrance hall.

"Welcome home, master Juan." He did not look surprised when they stepped up onto the porch—not by the fact that there were four of them, or that they were all still wet. "I take it we'll have guests for the evening?"

"Quite so, Sebastian. If you could find room for everyone, I would greatly appreciate it. We'll take some dinner, as well—whatever you've time to throw together will do."

He wiped his soggy boots on the doormat, then stepped inside; everyone else followed suit. A polished staircase coiled away up one side of the spacious entrance hall, which itself led away towards a broad hall lined with doors. The top of the banister was fashioned into the likeness of a Goldeen.

"Feel free to leave your shoes here," Juan told the others, "and dry out your attire before anything else. I expect you're tired of being wet all day." When no one moved, he continued genially, "Well, I can't very well let you stand there in wet clothes all evening, can I? It would be a black mark on what I hope is my otherwise flawless record of hospitality. Come this way, Sebastian will get you sorted out."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Dinner was an impromptu, awkward affair. Juan made a valiant effort to play host, suggesting they eat something light while letting Sebastian cook a proper meal at which they could all sit down and talk, but in the end it was sandwiches and near-silence in the kitchen, Juan's attempts at conversation netting him little success. Of his three guests, Maxie seemed the most inclined to talk—it transpired that he and Juan had the same taste in several areas—but Maxie seemed distracted, dour; he would trail off at the end of a sentence and frown to himself, losing the thread of his thought, unmotivated to pick it up again. Eventually Juan surrendered and took his leave of them, saying that Sebastian would show them to their rooms, to ask him if they needed anything, and for someone to inform him when Lance showed up.

Shelly, Maxie, and Tabitha soon split up. Shelly did not say where she was going when she left the kitchen, and after a while Tabitha announced that he needed to hunt down some Pokémon food for Mightyena and departed in search of Sebastian. This left Maxie sitting alone at the kitchen table, feeling tired, and only slightly better for being full of sandwich. After nearly a whole day spent in the pitch darkness of the Cave of Origin, and two full days before that in the crowded Space Center, it felt eerie, almost dreamlike, to sit by himself in what looked like a normal kitchen. If Juan's house had sustained damage from the earthquake, there was no evidence of it here; nothing looked cracked or chipped or out of place. Probably the butler had already swept anything damaged neatly out of sight. He seemed to be very efficient in that regard; he'd even cleaned Maxie's coat this afternoon, though it didn't look that much better for it.

Maxie rested his head in one hand and rubbed his temple, half-sighing, wondering what to do with himself. There was a living room adjacent to the kitchen, with a television in it, and Juan had a generator to provide electricity—but Maxie was not sure he really wanted to know how many more people and Pokémon had been confirmed dead in the past twenty-four hours. Trudging through Sootopolis City, looking at the damage caused by Kyogre's storm, had been enough.

He sighed again, then stood and made for the pantry, still hungry, but not enough to eat another whole sandwich (he'd had two). At least, Maxie assumed it was the pantry. When he pulled open the door, however, he realized he'd been mistaken; the door moved heavily, and cool air hit him. He stood blinking, bewildered for a moment, and then the automatic light clicked on, revealing rows of bottles lying on their sides in wooden racks. It was a wine closet.

Maxie stared. Then, with sudden resolution, he stepped inside, passing a hand over the rows of bottle necks, looking for something inexpensive. There didn't seem to be anything, but in the far corner he at last hit upon some sake that, while not cheap, did not seem quite on par with anything else in the cellar. He retrieved the bottle, closed the door behind him, and then marched with it through first the kitchen and then the living room, heading for the far door that led to the garden outside. It was the most determined action he had taken in three days.

The garden smelled sweet; the rosebushes were not quite blooming, but nevertheless fragrant. Maxie hesitated, then set off down a paved stone path that wound between the hedges, stopping when it passed by a small, open patch of grass beside a gurgling fountain. There was no bench there, and so Maxie simply took a seat on the manicured grass in front of the fountain, setting the bottle of sake beside him and steadying it when it threatened to tip over.

Twilight deepened as he sat brooding, tinting the rosebushes with reddish bronze; Maxie might have thought it beautiful, had he cared to really notice. But already he was too wrapped up in his own musings to pay much attention to the world around him. After a few minutes of thought, during which stars began to peer down from the darkening heavens, Maxie wrestled with, and finally defeated, the screw cap in the sake battle.

The first whiff of it brought back a flood of memories; he had not had sake in years. This was not the cheap stuff he'd guzzled all through his days at university, but nevertheless the smell of it was similar enough to take him back to that time, and comparing it with his situation now made him wonder—as he took his first pull straight from the neck of the bottle—what, exactly, was the most ridiculous part of his existence at the moment. Certainly, in comparison with the life he'd imagined he'd have twenty years ago, this was absurd: at no point in his youth had he predicted that he would ever have reason to sit and drink on a stranger's lawn to forget the crimes he'd committed against humanity. Maxie watched the fountain splash.

No. The most ludicrous part of this (he took a swig of sake) was that, up until the moment he had laid eyes on Groudon three days ago, he had genuinely believed that he would be respected, admired even, for what he would manage to accomplish with it, once it was his. He had accepted that in order to acquire Groudon, he might sometimes have to resort to illegal actions, but somehow that had always seemed perfectly reasonable—even justified. People who got in the way...well, they simply hadn't understood, had they? And he'd told himself that that was unfortunate, but expected, and that measures had to be taken...And he'd believed (another swig; the alcohol stung his throat) that the only reason that anyone interfered in the first place was because they did not understand. That was all. If he'd had the chance to properly _explain, _surely, no one would have objected to his plans. Surely...

Maxie nursed the bottle, remembering. It was less what Steven had said and more the way he'd said it: wearing a quietly disturbed expression, as though he could not decide whether to condemn or pity someone so obviously sick in the head. Outright hatred would have been better. It would have meant he was still important, if nothing else. But the fact that he was walking free now, even under supervision, drove home just how little he mattered; there would have been a perverse kind of dignity in being arrested, but he wasn't even worth that yet. Invisible, irrelevant, kept out of prison only on the off chance that he might have some small utility to the brave people trying to fix his mistakes...And only days ago he had been the center of not only his own world, but of dozens of others', too.

What he had liked the most about Team Magma, Maxie realized suddenly, was precisely that sense of importance: his self-made identity as a visionary around whom others' lives revolved. Realizing this made him so angry at himself that he took another long pull from the bottle. A fine vision! That was all it had ever been, a vision, a mirage...his own pride, willfully veiled from his eyes by a shroud of good intentions. Really, he was no better than Archie had been.

Maxie frowned at the bubbling fountain before him. Of course the reckless idiot had had the nerve to go and die, and leave everyone else to deal with the consequences. It was almost impressive, how even in death he managed to be a source of intense frustration. Maxie did not like it, but it occurred to him that when one boiled it all down, Archie had been a more honest man than him. He had not felt the need, as Maxie had, to lie to himself about what he wanted and why, to gloss over his personal ambition with noble words and utopian schemes. He had died as he had always lived, in unrestrained pursuit of his desires, and now Maxie was left with no scapegoat, no foil. Always, on the rare occasions when a shadow of doubt had fallen over his mind, Maxie had been able to look to Team Aqua for reassurance, to point at Archie and say _that man is the dangerous lunatic, not I. _But that luxury was gone now.

Never mind that without Archie in it, the world was now a better place: a little less crass, a little less cruel and violent. As Maxie sat there on the grass, feeling the first hint of intoxication, he was faced with the bitter realization that all of the things that Archie had come to symbolize for him—chaos and cruelty and the unbridled destructive potential of the powers they were after—still existed, very much so, and now Maxie no longer had a dark shadow on whom to pin the blame for the evil that stemmed from his actions. Archie had never been anything more than one man, and his death had not made Maxie's life easier, or Maxie himself any happier. All it had done was leave him to shoulder the blame for their mutual sins by himself.

Maxie looked down into the neck of the bottle, watching the liquid inside slosh as he lightly swirled it. And to think that once, all those years ago, Archie's had been a voice he actually wanted to hear...

_Come on, Maxie, it's not the end of the world._

Maxie snorted and took another pull from the bottle. Archie was wrong.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

They had met in a karaoke bar, of all places, when Maxie was still at university. It had been a coincidence. Maxie and his friends did not usually go to that particular bar, and it was so packed that the only table that would seat all of them happened to be next to a group of rowdy young sailors. Between half-price beers and well-chosen songs, the two parties ended up blending over the course of the evening, and at one point Maxie found himself in conversation with a young man a couple of years his junior whose rough laugh could be heard anywhere in the room. They had started arguing over something—Maxie could not even remember what, now—and when Maxie had gone out for a smoke, the young man had followed him to continue the conversation. They never bothered to go back inside.

Archie was everything Maxie was not: loud, brash, uneducated (he had run away to sea rather than finish school) and contemptuous of the thought of looking before he leaped. He was intelligent, Maxie found; he just had no appreciation for abstracted instruction. They hit it off so well (they concluded, because it seemed strange even to them) perhaps because for all their many differences, they also had some uncanny similarities. Their birthdays fell within the same week; they were almost exactly the same height. Both had been brought up by one parent—Archie by his mother, Maxie his father. Both had been saddled with a grandfather's name which neither of them liked the full sound of. And both were brimming with ideas.

Being a sailor, Archie was not always in town; and, being a student, Maxie was not always free. But whenever the two young men found time for each other's company, they invariably spent it in conversation, strolling up and down the quiet end of the pier. The pair of them always made a strange sight on these outings. Archie—muscular, tan, bearded and dark-haired, hands thrust in his pockets, his rough laugh booming across the harbor; Maxie—lean and pale and clean-shaven, his red hair short and sleek, his unbuttoned collar the only unkempt thing about him as he exhaled clouds of blue smoke.

They argued about nearly everything, but it was an enjoyable sort of sparring that never got really vicious. When they were not arguing, they were philosophizing, bouncing ideas off of each other about how the world ought to be, and this, too, sometimes turned into a kind of contest, the two of them competing to see who could dream the biggest. The relative heat of these arguments fluctuated in accordance with the alcohol involved in generating them, and Maxie distinctly remembered that alcohol had been involved the first time the topic of legendary Pokémon had come up.

"Makes you wonder what all is out there, y'know?" Archie had said. "Crazy shit we don't even know about..."

It was one of those odd friendships that neither's other acquaintances could really understand—though both Archie and Maxie had made genuine attempts early on to integrate into each other's lives. One weekend, Archie had taken Maxie deep-sea fishing with his friends, which Maxie had not enjoyed in the slightest. In retaliation, Maxie had dragged Archie to an art gallery two weeks later, to see an exhibit of avant-garde work from a Nacrene City art collective. It hadn't worked very well.

"They hung this one upside down."

"For the love of—Archie, it's not upside down."

"Yes it is, look. If you flipped it over, and do this," he tilted his head and squinted, "it looks like a Lapras. See, there's the shell."

"It's not a Lapras."

"Then what the hell is it?"

"This is an exhibit of perceptionism."

"Which means what?"

Maxie unfolded the brochure from his pocket.

"It _means," _he said, "that everything in this exhibit is 'a conscious distillation by the artist of an emotional idea into its purest essence of shape and color. The interplay of these two most fundamental elements of visual speech creates a dynamic motion within the paintings, as well as opening up space for dialogue between artist and viewer. Perceptionism challenges the viewer to conceptualize the...' Well, in essence, it's abstract."

"Abstract."

"Yes."

"So it looks like whatever we think it does."

"That is the idea."

"Well, this one looks like an upside-down Lapras."

"Archie—"

"You _just said—"_

They were asked to leave before they reached the end of the exhibit hall, which Archie was only too happy to do. Maxie found him waiting outside half an hour later, flirting with a pair of giggling art students.

"What's the point?" Archie said simply, when Maxie demanded how it was possible not like a single thing he'd seen in the exhibit. "Why look at a screwed-up painting of something when I can just go look at the damn thing by itself? That one of a boat—"

"It wasn't a boat."

"Well, it looked like a boat, and I can go see a real one for free that's about ten times nicer to look at than a bunch of splotches that you have to squint to figure out what it is. So there."

None of Maxie's arguments about aesthetics went anywhere, and eventually he gave it up as a lost cause. Despite incidents like these—or perhaps, because of them—Maxie valued Archie's company, and vice-versa; each of them had a sense that the others' viewpoint was one they could get nowhere else. The fact that that viewpoint was sometimes inexplicable did not diminish its value, and Archie was always happy to weigh in on whatever grand idea had captured Maxie's attention at the moment. He was also fond of dispensing nuggets of what he apparently considered worldly wisdom, which Maxie very rarely agreed with the gist of.

The most emphatic of these had been delivered under unhappy circumstances about a year after the two of them had met. Maxie's boyfriend had told him over their first anniversary dinner that things were getting stale and he wanted to take a break so they could see other people—which, incidentally, he had already started doing. The resulting argument left Maxie alone with the restaurant bill.

It was his first real heartbreak, and at twenty it had seemed the deepest human misery possible. Maxie had spent the following week in a theatrical depression, subsisting entirely on expensive cigarettes, cheap wine, and a sense of spiritual injury so intense it bordered on martyrdom.

Archie's sympathy had only lasted for the first few days of this. This was partly Maxie's own fault, as in a fit of self-righteousness he had asserted that Archie could not understand what he was going through, since Archie's idea of a steady relationship was visiting the same brothel every time he called at a given port. Archie had taken this not untrue observation in stride, but as the days passed and Maxie showed no sign of improvement, his patience (not plentiful to begin with) wore out.

"For fuck's sake, Maxie, pull yourself together," Archie had said, having stopped by one evening and found Maxie right where he had left him the day before, facedown on the sofa with the TV blaring. "You can't keep dragging yourself around like a sad sack of shit. Come on, let's go have some fun before I have to ship out on Friday."

In the end Archie managed to extract him from his apartment via a threat that he would turn the place upside down otherwise. Happy hour at their favorite karaoke haunt did something to revive Maxie's spirits, though this had less to do with the karaoke and more to do with the beer and bottle of sake Archie generously donated towards the cause.

"You know what? Fuck him." Archie slammed his empty glass onto the grimy plastic tabletop.

"I did," Maxie muttered, gazing unsteadily at the watery bottom of his own mug.

"You know what I mean, Maxie. I mean fuck him for good, that's what I say." Archie gestured to the wall, as though this were a sensible reference point for the subject of their conversation. "He's just one guy. Plenty of other guys out there, so fuck him. He can go to hell."

"Go to hell," Maxie repeated, though without much conviction. He took another swig of beer; a little slopped onto his wrinkled shirt.

"That's right," Archie said firmly. "Come on, Maxie, it's not the end of the world. Look at you. You're still here, right? You're still kickin'. So some guy dumped your ass—shit happens. But you can't just sit around and cry till you drown in your own snot. Tide isn't gonna stop rolling and wait for you, you always gotta be ready to sail."

"That—that doesn't even make sense, Archie..."

"Yes it does. Now listen." He pounded a fist on the table. "I'm not gonna just—fuckin'—just fuckin' sit here and watch you flop around like—like a fuckin' Magikarp_._ All right? Tomorrow...Tomorrow you gotta get up and do some shit. Start over."

Archie leaned back in his chair, which made a noise of protest.

"'Cause you know what, Maxie? That's it. That's life."

"What's...What's life, Archie? I don't...what do you—"

"Know what you want, and then do it." Archie slapped the table again for emphasis; the glasses rattled. "That's how it goes. That's the _big secret."_

He sounded enormously pleased with himself for having figured this out. Maxie's alcohol-soaked brain took a little while to absorb this profound thought, and when he tried to repeat it aloud, the words blended together into something incomprehensible. Archie, however, understood.

"That's right," he said in satisfaction. "So forget 'im, Maxie."

Maxie attempted to pour himself another serving of sake. Most of it wound up on the table, but enough made it in that he had something to drink after he and Archie clinked glasses. Archie drained the last of his beer in one fell swoop, then sighed and wiped the foam from his mustache. Suddenly he perked up, listening intently. Maxie took a moment to pay an equal amount of attention; at first he had thought the familiar strains of music had been in his head.

"C'mon, let's go," Archie said, pushing his chair back with a loud screech.

"Go where?"

"The hell do you think? Let's go sing."

"We didn't—didn't order—this one. I think...Did we?"

"I don't care. I fuckin' love this song. C'mon."

Maxie considered this.

"Know what you want, and then do it," he said at last, and staggered up, his elbow just missing the chance to knock over the sake bottle.


	14. Chapter 14

Shelly wrung out her hair. She was sitting on the edge of the pool with her legs dangling in, dripping wet, the surface of the water still choppy from the round of laps she had swum. The Gym was empty. Shelly supposed the room was only for Pokémon battles; there were bleachers set up along one wall, and on either end of the long pool rose two high platforms for trainers to stand on and survey the terrain. Still, water was water.

She tugged at the bathing suit she had borrowed, which did not quite fit, and then squeezed out another handful of her long red hair, water spattering onto the concrete beside her. A little distance away, Juan's Milotic watched her, hiding behind one of the platforms scattered over the water. Shelly glanced at it, letting herself be curious, then looked away.

She wondered what to do with the rest of her evening. She was tired, but not completely exhausted, and knew that if she tried to fall asleep this early, she would end up lying awake. More than anything she wanted to push forward, to take some concrete action of some kind, but there was nothing left to do now except wait.

Frowning, she gazed at her own reflection, distorted in the water that rippled around her knees. She could not see the future anymore, not the way she'd been able to do since joining Team Aqua. There had always been a clear goal, a quantifiable measurement of success; even if she did not know exactly what the next step forward ought to be, the destination had never changed. No longer. Shelly had no idea what was going to happen next—not even what would happen tomorrow. It was a feeling she had told herself she would not ever have to deal with again, as long as she trusted no one's instincts over her own.

Perhaps, she thought bitterly, it was inevitable. Maybe there was some cruel strain encoded into her DNA that made her walk, steady and straight and level-headed, into only the deepest traps. She'd done it again, somehow, after swearing flatly she wouldn't; naivete, disguised as ambition, had led her so far astray that there was no going back. It was time to wrap up everything that Team Aqua had been and put it away forever. Archie was dead, and everyone was gone, and trying to control Kyogre was futile. They might as well have tried to put a muzzle on the tide.

Briefly she thought of escape, of disappearing into the city, but the idea made her contemptuous. She did not grudge the others for fleeing, but she knew she could not do the same. Life had already taught her how to shoulder the weight of her own mistakes and carry it without stumbling. She had not gone crawling home at seventeen, when Wade's silver tongue tarnished and the money finally ran out; she would not skulk away now, telling herself that the destruction wreaked by Kyogre and Groudon was beyond her capacity to deal with. Not for the first time, and with a grim satisfaction, she felt her own pride outweigh fear. She had stolen, but never begged; nothing could change that, not even disaster.

Shelly dipped one hand into the clear, cool water, swirling it around her fingers. Movement at the corner of her eye made her look up, and she noticed Juan's Milotic had swum forward a little, curious. It seemed to have decided that she was not a threat, and slithered yet closer, its long antennae trailing on the surface of the water. A dozen feet away it hesitated, coiling itself up and blinking. Shelly met its gaze.

"I don't bite too hard," she said. "Unless you get in my way."

The Milotic curled around itself shyly, then approached. It raised the upper third of its body out of the water like a charmed snake, gazing right into her face, its eyes limpid. Shelly paused, then reached out her hand.

It let her touch its muzzle. Shelly smiled a little; its scales were so small and smooth that it felt like touching a baby. When she rubbed her thumb along the base of one of its antennae, it trilled, and the sound was immediately, magically soothing, like a salve being applied inside her chest. Shelly smiled more broadly and stroked its head.

"You're beautiful," she told it. "Even for a Water Pokémon."

She had had a picture book about a Milotic, as a child; she could not remember the title now, even though her parents had read it to her dozens of times. The ending had always been her favorite. The pages had been printed so that the Milotic—which had been an ugly little Feebas for most of the book—suddenly shone, its cream-colored body iridescent with a sheen that had seemed to her, as a very young girl, nothing short of magical. She had never seen a real Milotic this close before, and the effect was similar. It was more than its physical beauty, too. As Shelly stroked Milotic, she felt as if something tightly coiled inside of her was slowly and carefully being unwound.

From behind her came the sound of the door to the Gym opening. The calming feeling evaporated; Shelly twisted around.

"Am I intruding?"

Juan paused on the threshold, waiting for an answer, and when only silence greeted him, he strode up to the poolside. Milotic cooed at him, draping itself lightly across Shelly's shoulder to greet him as he approached. He rubbed its head.

"Ah, my dear Milotic...I see you've made a friend." He looked down at Shelly. "May I join you?"

Shelly rather thought he didn't need to ask permission to sit by his own pool with his own Pokémon, but she shrugged all the same. Juan inclined his head, then sat down beside her, though he did not put his legs in the water. Milotic wrapped its upper body over his shoulders like a shawl, and he scratched its chin; when it had had enough, it slipped back into the water, barely rippling the surface. Juan smiled when it rested its head on Shelly's knees.

"You must have an extraordinary rapport with Water-type Pokémon," he said to her. "Milotic isn't usually so warm with strangers."

"Hmph. Is that what you tell everyone who comes to visit?"

"No. I was paying you a compliment. My apologies if it went amiss."

Shelly studied him evenly, trying to decide whether to believe him, then scowled and looked away. Milotic sank back into the water and swam off, winding around one of the floating platforms.

"Sorry," Shelly said flatly. "I don't get a lot of compliments."

"Is that so? That surprises me very much."

She studied him again; he seemed politely impervious to her mood.

"I know what you're trying to do," she said, "and I'm not interested. I don't appreciate having another thing deal with right now, on top of everything else. Is that clear?"

"Not entirely." Juan plucked at the tip of his sharp mustache. "Would it be too bold of me to ask what _everything else _is?"

"You haven't noticed that the world is ending?"

"Ah, that." He let go of his mustache. "Well, we must hold out some hope yet, I think. With any luck, today we discovered what it is we need to know. It's only a matter of time now until a solution is found."

Shelly exhaled through her nose. Juan looked curious.

"You think otherwise?"

"I don't know what to think." Shelly said this to her reflection, rippling on the surface of the water. "All those people...We never..." She trailed off, then said firmly, "All I know anymore is that I have to do this. Even if I'm by myself."

"Hmm." Juan paused, and then asked gently, "The earthquake...Did you lose someone?"

Shelly's hand gripping the edge of the pool turned white at the knuckles.

"I am sorry."

"Don't be." She kept her gaze focused on her own distorted reflection. Her voice was bitter. "Turns out it wasn't much of a loss."

"How do you mean?"

"The last thing he ever did was stab me in the back."

"I see." Juan paused. "That is unfortunate."

"That's not the word I would use."

"No...Perhaps not." Another pause; Shelly could sense him studying her profile. "Did you know her, then?"

"Who?"

"The other woman."

Shelly looked over at him swiftly, her brow furrowed.

"It's more complicated than that."

"Ah. More than one..."

She did not correct him; his assumption made more sense, and would have been easier to comprehend, than what had really happened. She watched colored light from one of the stained-glass windows dance across the surface of the pool, calm now but for the ripples made by Milotic.

"I just wish I knew," she said finally, "whether he always wanted to do it, or if he just..." She cut herself off; when she spoke again, her voice was hard. "I'm not going to sit here and make excuses for him. That was never my job. And the world's better off without him."

"Mm...perhaps. But are you?"

Shelly looked over at Juan again, frowning.

"I don't think that's any of your concern."

"No. I suppose it isn't. But, if I may..."

"Drop it already. You don't know me."

"You're quite correct—I do not." He inclined his head respectfully, toying once more with the end of his mustache. "But if you will allow me to say it...I admire you."

Shelly gazed evenly at him, waiting for him to acknowledge his own joke, but his expression was one of benign curiosity.

"You don't think I'm crazy?"

"Well...As you say, I don't know you, so I cannot make such a sweeping judgement as that, one way or the other," said Juan. "But I think you have great courage. One must, to try and change the world."

"Or to try and control it."

"Hm. Yes, I suppose that's true as well." Juan considered this. "Was that what you had wanted to do, with Team Aqua? Mm, what is the phrase...'Rule the world'?"

"More or less." Shelly wrung out the bottom of her hair one last time, grimacing. "You can see how well that turned out."

"How extraordinary...A beautiful dream."

"You really think so?"

Her tone was so cutting that Juan smiled.

"Yes. But beauty is not a moral quality, you understand. For a thing to be beautiful is not the same as for it to be good, or wise, or kind. The sea...She is beautiful, and yet cruel, is she not?"

Shelly said nothing. Water trickled from her hairline down across her face; she brushed it away.

"What are you playing at?" she asked Juan at last.

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Why are you talking to me?"

"Why? Well...You seemed rather alone, I thought."

"Well spotted." Shelly plucked at the too-tight shoulder strap of her swimsuit, then said curtly, "Look, thank you for letting me stay here. But I didn't ask for your two cents."

"My apologies." He inclined his head. "Advice unasked for is not a welcome gift, even at the best of times. I offered it in good faith, but it seems I misspoke. I apologize again, most sincerely."

Shelly nodded in acknowledgement, but did not speak right away. When she did, it was suddenly, and in a haughty sort of way.

"And supposing I _was_ in the mood for advice...What kind would I get?"

Juan chuckled at her feigned carelessness, but when he spoke, his voice was sincere—almost gentle.

"Well, in that case...My advice, were you to ask it of me, would be this: to remember what was good and beautiful about him, whoever he was, and let his mistakes die with him."

Shelly snorted.

"I can't forgive him."

"I am not saying you must. I simply think that, for your own sake alone, you would do well not to hold your hate too closely. The dead can only hurt you if you let them—and in my experience, there is no reason to."

Silence. The sound of the water sloshing in the pool was magnified by the high-ceilinged roof above them, and Milotic swam a little closer, sending out ripples that hit Shelly's knees. She did not seem to mind—or even notice. Her gaze upon the water was unfocused.

"I will take my leave," Juan said, and got to his feet. "I had not intended to disturb you. Forgive my intrusion." He looked over at Milotic, then told Shelly, "You may make as much use of this pool as you like while you are here. I do not expect to be accepting challengers for the Rain Badge anytime soon."

Milotic swam up, raising itself out of the pool for one last pat. Juan smiled as he stroked the smooth horn on its forehead, then bowed lightly to Shelly and turned, striding away. Shelly did not watch him, but the echo of the shutting door reached her soon. Milotic lowered itself back into the pool and took off, its scales shining as it weaved its way through the water.

Let his mistakes die with him...Easy enough for Juan to say. He didn't know the half of it. Shelly wondered if he would have made the same suggestion had he known the truth. Not that it mattered either way. _Good _and _beautiful _were the last two words Shelly would have chosen to describe the man Archie had been.

What _had _he been, she wondered, watching Milotic swim gracefully across the pool. What was there to remember about Archie besides his ambition and passion, his rough laugh, his blue eyes and strong hands, his infectious belief that anything you wanted from life could be yours, even the whole world, if you only had the confidence to reach out to take it...

Her throat tightened. She slipped back into the water.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Tabitha frowned at his reflection and gently touched the spot just under his left ear where he'd cut himself shaving, his other hand clutching the edge of the sink. The nick was not deep, and had already stopped bleeding; he wiped it with his thumb and rubbed beneath his nose, enjoying the lack of anything that could ever dream of becoming a mustache. For the first time in three days he was clean-shaven, had showered, and eaten a meal that filled his whole stomach. Even without his uniform on, this was the most normal he had felt since Monsu Island. He assessed himself one last time in the ornate mirror, then left the bathroom.

Mightyena was still curled up on the hardwood floor, its eyes half-lidded. Tabitha threw on the clothes the butler had left folded on the bed, all of which were a size too big, and rummaged for his belt, finally finding it where it had fallen back behind the bed. Once he'd fastened it, he bent and scratched Mightyena behind the ears.

"You ate that whole bowl of food already?"

Mightyena growled and swished its tail.

"Fatty."

Another growl, but too half-hearted to be threatening. Tabitha ruffled its long fur, making a mental note to comb it soon, and then spent half a minute looking for his boots before remembering that they were still drying in the laundry room. He ran a hand through his damp hair, scowling as he tried (futilely, as always) to smooth out the cowlick at the back of his head, then gave up and sat on the edge of the neatly-made bed, wondering what to do with himself. It was not a question he had had to ask in a long time. He felt uncomfortable sitting in a stranger's house in a stranger's clothes, with no work to do and no one to give orders to; the fact that it had been a long day, and a productive one, did not help him relax. At last he got up and left. Mightyena growled a goodbye as the door closed.

There was no one out in the main hall, and Tabitha made for the curved staircase, descending past a row of oil paintings into the entrance hall and stopping on the rug at the foot of the stairs. He did not know where he ought to go or what he ought to do, and the feeling bothered him. Finally he headed for the main living room, for no reason other than to give himself the illusion of doing something purposeful.

The living room was empty, too. Tabitha surveyed it with something like disdain; he had never been anywhere like this, with antique furniture artfully arranged around a flatscreen television framed by shelves of first-edition books. The only part of the room that seemed in any way familiar to Tabitha was the far wall, which was entirely glass, offering a view of the dark rose garden beyond. It reminded him of the large glass window that was—had been—in Maxie's office.

This thought made Tabitha realize he had not seen Maxie in a while, and he scowled, annoyed with himself. At once he swept away, back up the stairs, but within five minutes he had returned; Maxie was not in his room. Tabitha poked his head into the empty kitchen, still frowning, and then began a systematic search of the ground floor. In the den, he found Sebastian.

"Have you seen Maxie?" Tabitha demanded, as a greeting. The butler raised his eyebrows, though his expression was polite.

"The red-haired gentleman? Not within the last hour or so, I'm afraid."

"Where is he?"

"Well...I last saw him heading out into the gardens. I've not checked whether he's come back inside."

Tabitha pivoted and swept away without a parting word, marching down the hall and back into the living room. He did not even flip on a light as he crossed the room and made for a door to the right of the glass wall, which led out into the garden.

The warm, humid night air smelled faintly of roses. Tabitha set off down the stone pathway that threaded through the maze of flower beds and rosebushes, damaged by the recent storm. At one point along the path, a patch of grassy lawn opened up to his left, ringing a gurgling marble fountain carved in the shape of a Magikarp; there was a dark figure hunkered in front of it. Tabitha halted.

Maxie was sitting cross-legged on the grass in front of the fountain, resting his head in one hand; the little spotlight that illuminated the fountain from within cast his long shadow across the grass behind him. When Tabitha approached, Maxie looked up over his shoulder; as soon as he recognized Tabitha, he sighed and returned his attention to the splashing water, slumped over with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, as though pouting. Tabitha noticed a large bottle lying on the ground next to him.

"Maxie, sir...Do you need anything?"

Maxie sighed heavily, then hiccuped and pressed the back of his hand to his mouth. He sighed again, and his hand fell into his lap.

"Hello, Tabitha..."

His voice was strange, slurred. Tabitha frowned at him in the darkness.

"How long have you been out here, sir?"

"Oh..." Maxie poked the empty bottle, making it roll over in the grass feebly, like a wounded thing. "I don't know...Awhile, I suppose..."

"Did you..." Tabitha picked up the bottle and squinted at the label, frowning deeper, trying to read it in the spotlight from the fountain. "Did you drink all of this just now?"

Maxie answered with another hiccup. Tabitha sniffed the rim of the bottle, grimaced, and then set it upright back onto the grass.

"Maxie, I think you've had enough," he said, and moved the bottle out of reach for good measure. Maxie made a halfhearted grab for it, then seemed to remember it was empty and stopped himself. Unfortunately, this resulted in him sprawling sideways, and Tabitha caught his shoulders, steadying him. Maxie grumbled something, but Tabitha could not understand it.

After considering his options, Tabitha sat down gingerly next to Maxie on the grass. Maxie did not object, but did not engage him in conversation, either; he seemed preoccupied, as though the movement of the water in the fountain mesmerized him. Tabitha waited a bit before speaking.

"Are you all right, sir? You've had a lot to drink."

Maxie did not answer, except to rub his mouth with the back of his hand. He was now staring across the bubbling fountain at the dark garden beyond; Tabitha had a feeling he was seeing something that wasn't there.

"Maxie?"

"Hm?" Maxie looked over at him.

"Are you all right?"

Maxie shook his head and looked away.

"Tabitha...I am a sad sack of shit."

"Says who?"

"Archie."

Tabitha leaned forward to peer around Maxie, as though expecting to see Archie sitting on his other side. He blinked when he realized what he had done.

"You've definitely had enough for one night, Maxie," he said firmly. "Why don't you go back inside?"

Maxie shook his head again, but then lurched—he seemed to have dizzied himself. He whined and clutched his head in both hands, bending forward; Tabitha wondered whether he was going to be sick.

"Uh—please don't throw up in the fountain, sir. Here..."

But Maxie righted himself before Tabitha could reach out. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, gritting his teeth, and the dizzy spell seemed to pass. After a few moments, he opened his eyes again, swaying a little as he gazed up at the night sky.

"I'm frightened, Tabitha."

He said this to the waning moon. Tabitha shifted.

"Frightened of what, sir?"

"Everything, now." Maxie looked over at Tabitha again. "Nothing frightens _you,_ does it, Tabitha?"

"I'm scared of some things, sir."

"Such as?"

An evasive mutter answered this. Maxie smiled crookedly.

"That's just—just what I thought. You aren't afraid of anything, are you, Tabitha? Nothing in the whole wide world..."

Tabitha wished this were true. Aloud he said, "I think everyone's afraid of something, sir."

"Perhaps..."

Maxie fell silent, moodily contemplating this possibility. Tabitha studied the ripples in the fountain for lack of anything constructive to say; nothing in his previous experience as an admin had prepared him for this. Granted, he had seen Maxie tipsy a few times before, but this was unnerving; he was not animated or upset, or even talkative, like usual. He was just quiet.

"Are you sure you don't want to go inside, sir?" Tabitha tried again. Maxie, however, did not seem to hear him. He was staring intently ahead, as though attempting to focus his unsteady gaze on something specific, but as far as Tabitha could tell, there was nothing to look at, save some rosebushes a few yards away.

"What _happened?"_

Maxie sounded as though he were demanding this of someone else, and not Tabitha—perhaps of himself.

"What is this wretched scene..."

He waved a hand forward, gesturing widely. Tabitha sensed that he was not talking about the garden around them, but rather, about the rest of Hoenn. He was staring at the rosebushes, but seeing something else in their place: perhaps the disfigured panorama of Sootopolis, or the burning, ruined harbor of Mossdeep Island.

"Did I...make a horrible mistake? I...I only wanted..." His voice cracked. "All I want...I just want to expand the land mass...Is that bad?" He looked over at Tabitha. "Am I bad?"

He was crying. Noiselessly, passively, without even sobbing or changing expression; tears simply slipped unnoticed down his pale, lined face. Tabitha's stomach lurched horribly.

"No, sir. You're not."

Maxie blinked and looked away.

"This isn't what I wanted," he said quietly, the words tumbling over one another, half-formed. "This isn't what I wanted at all, I didn't, I didn't want...You believe me, don't you? Tabitha?"

"Yes, sir. I understand."

"Of—of course you do. But, I didn't want..."

As Maxie leaned forward and clutched his scalp with both hands, a strangled sob escaped him—an ugly animal noise that Tabitha had never imagined could exist. Maxie had always been confident, collected, eloquent; the drunk man weeping beside Tabitha in the dark might have been a stranger, had his voice not been so painfully familiar. The fountain's gurgling somehow sounded as if it were commiserating with him.

If there had been someone to blame for this, Tabitha would have lunged to his feet and killed them. Instead he hesitated, then reached out and touched Maxie's shoulder.

"Sir?"

A hiccup. Tabitha squeezed his shoulder gently.

"Maxie, it's going to be all right. We'll fix this."

"How?"

"I don't know, sir." He tasted the bitter truth of it even as the words left his mouth. "But we will. I promise."

"How...how can you...promise?"

He couldn't. Tabitha felt an impotent anger seethe inside him—impotent because he had nowhere to direct it. On whom was he supposed to cast the blame for how badly everything had gone wrong? On himself? Team Aqua? Groudon? Fate?

"I'm a murderer."

Maxie hiccuped, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand. Tabitha let go of his shoulder.

"Maxie, don't say that. This isn't your fault."

"But it _is." _He sounded so pained that Tabitha felt his stomach lurch again. "I wanted Groudon, but...not like this..."

He kept mumbling _not like this_, the words blending together, his moans punctuated once or twice by hiccups; after a bit, he buried his face in one hand.

Tabitha did not know what to do. It was nails on a chalkboard to hear the center of his universe hate every piece of himself so much that only this could express it, but Tabitha's reassurances had rung pathetically hollow even to himself. He reached out again—to do what?—and then drew back hastily, silently cursing himself; Maxie did not notice. With a great effort, Tabitha forced himself to sit there and do nothing, watching Maxie suffer, and wondering if he had ever in his life hated anything so much.

After a few long minutes, Maxie stopped sobbing, but Tabitha could see his shoulders still trembling. The fountain continued to sputter its sympathies.

"Maxie?"

Maxie shuddered, then looked up. His damp face was paler than usual, and strained.

"Yes, Tabitha?"

"I think you should go inside and get some sleep now. It's been a long day."

Maxie blinked at him. Then, with a resigned sigh, he shifted position and leaned his head against Tabitha's shoulder. Tabitha froze.

"Uh. Sir?"

Maxie mumbled something unintelligible. Tabitha sat stiffly, afraid to move, and Maxie sighed.

"You're a good boy, Tabitha," he muttered.

"You're a good leader, sir."

"No, I'm not..."

"I think you are."

Maxie sighed again through his nose, then raised his head off of Tabitha's shoulder and held the side of his face, swallowing hard. Tabitha wondered whether his misery was purely emotional, or if he was starting to feel nauseous too. Suddenly he scowled.

"You...you disobeyed me, Tabitha."

Maxie said this petulantly, like a child remembering some playground slight. Tabitha nodded.

"Yes, sir. I did."

"Why would you do that?" His quizzical gaze was unfocused. "You've...never done that before..."

"I wanted to come with you."

"Why?"

"Because we still have a mission to complete."

"No, we don't." Maxie closed his eyes. "It's over, Tabitha. It's all over, all of it, everything...You'll understand soon..."

"It's not over yet, sir. Things would be easier if it was."

For a few minutes, the two men sat side-by-side on the grass of Juan's garden, the empty sake bottle lying beside them, the quiet of the warm night filled by the chattering of the fountain and ambient noise from the rest of the wounded city. The incongruous scent of bruised roses kept intruding on Tabitha's senses.

At last Maxie gave a great shuddering sigh and wiped his damp face with his coat sleeve, swallowing hard.

"Tabitha?"

"Sir?"

"Team Magma...What are we now? What am I?"

"You're drunk, sir." Tabitha said this firmly. "And I think you should go inside and lie down before you start feeling sick."

Maxie rubbed his temple, wincing and blinking; he seemed about to fall asleep where he sat. Tabitha stood.

"Come on, Maxie. Let's go inside."

"I don't want to..."

"You can't stay out here all night, sir. Come on."

Maxie gave a resigned sigh, then tried to get up. Tabitha helped him to his feet, and wrapped one of Maxie's arms around his shoulder to better support him once he was standing. He had a sense of déjà vu that evaporated when he remembered why this was familiar; he had done the same thing at Monsu Island a few days ago, in another lifetime.

"Let's go, sir."

Maxie muttered a halfhearted protest, but complied. They had only made it halfway back up the lamplit path before Maxie halted suddenly, groaning a warning; Tabitha had the presence of mind to guide him to the edge of the path and keep his hair back as he vomited into a rosebush. When he finished, he coughed wetly, and Tabitha put Maxie's arm back around his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Maxie kept saying, over and over, the words slurring together into a moan. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."

"It's all right. We're almost to the house."

When they made it inside, Tabitha eased the glass door closed behind him as quietly as he could, then hoisted Maxie higher against his shoulder; he very much hoped that the butler didn't turn up. Beside him, Maxie looked like he was finally beginning to feel really ill, and pressed his forehead against Tabitha's shoulder, gritting his teeth. Tabitha nudged him.

"Come on, sir. Let's keep going."

He flipped on a light switch, then surveyed the living room, wondering whether it would be better to stay down here or to try and tackle the stairs. Maxie answered that question for him when his knees buckled, and Tabitha caught him, ignoring his apologies as he sank to the floor. He looked so dizzy and miserable that it was clear he would not stand up again of his own volition, and so Tabitha hooked one arm beneath Maxie's bent knees and picked him up, carrying him over to the couch and laying him down on it like a rag doll. Maxie buried the side of his face in one of the embroidered throw pillows.

"Do you want some water, sir?"

A groan answered him. Tabitha took it upon himself to hunt for a trash can, and when he returned with one, he found Maxie fumbling with the buttons inside his overcoat, trying to undo them. He'd only managed the top two. Tabitha set the trash can down and then reached out to do the rest; Maxie let him, melting into the cushions. When Tabitha got the coat unfastened, he helped Maxie sit up and pull it off, and Maxie promptly collapsed again, sprawling across the sofa and mumbling feebly. The only distinguishable words were _I'm sorry, _repeated many times, and once, _good boy. _

Tabitha carefully smoothed out Maxie's coat, then folded it over itself and draped it over the back of the sofa. When he did, he noticed a thin blanket lying there, more decorative than anything, patterned with bright Goldeen and Seaking; he pulled it off and threw it over his shoulder before kneeling and removing Maxie's shoes. When this was done, Tabitha nudged the trash can a little closer to the edge of the sofa next to Maxie's head, then stood and unfolded the blanket, pulling it over Maxie. Already he seemed asleep—if not, then too dazed to notice something this trivial.

After switching off the light, Tabitha returned to the sofa and pulled one of the nearby chairs close, sinking into it. Maxie shivered. He looked wretched, and Tabitha knew the alcohol was not really the reason.

As Tabitha sat there in silence, a change gradually came over him. After a few minutes, he began to relax, his posture betraying how tired he was from the long day; he bowed his head and rubbed the back of his neck, then ran a hand through his hair. A sigh. He leaned back in his chair, blinking up at the high ceiling; the starlight that filtered through the huge glass window beyond the sofa got caught in the crystal chandelier above, glittering faintly. Tabitha closed his eyes, then forced them open again, sitting forward, rubbing his face.

Maxie was quite asleep now. His breathing had steadied, but even in what little light there was, Tabitha could see his face—pale in the darkness, and still with the same miserable look, even in sleep. As Tabitha studied him, a strange expression passed swiftly over his own features, as though some strong feeling had welled up inside him, and by force of long habit he had immediately pushed it down.

He felt powerless. He would gladly walk through fire, if there was walking to be done, but to sit here helpless made him furious—and, if he cared to admit it, frightened. A blur of memories from the Space Center came back to him. He could not turn back time, or calm Groudon and Kyogre's wrath, or give life to the newly dead. All Tabitha could do was follow orders, and that was no longer enough. He wanted to _do_ something:to reach inside the man unconscious on the couch and unbreak him, to return them both to a world where they had plans that had not failed, power that had not vanished. But he could not. That world was gone forever.

The chair creaked when Tabitha got to his feet. He stood over Maxie, and again that strange expression crossed his face, though in the darkness of the empty room there was not a soul to see it. Maxie kept breathing steadily, and did not stir at all when Tabitha laid a hand on his head for a long moment—gently, as though blessing him. Then he turned away.


	15. Chapter 15

"It wasn't like I could just call her into my office and ask for a fuck, y'know?"

Archie was lying on his back on the sand with his hands behind his head, gazing up at the wide blue sky still tinged with pink in the east, the waves lapping his bare heels. Pikachu sat near his elbow, munching on a pecha berry.

"I mean, if I did, and she didn't want to, then she would've just quit the team—and I couldn't replace her. Nobody else was half as good as her at getting shit done. That's why I made her an admin in the first place." He emphasized his point with a wave of a hand, then tucked it back behind his head, scattering sand. "So I just...pretended not to notice her, for a while. Well, nah, that's not right...I mean, I couldn't _not _notice her; she was fuckin' gorgeous. But I didn't go after her like I would have if she hadn't been admin. Didn't wanna screw up something that was working so well by then."

"Pi." Pikachu nodded sagely and took another bite of berry.

"Eventually, though...Well, it was kinda by accident, almost. I started flirting with her sometimes, just to see if she'd go for it, y'know, and she didn't seem to mind. So one night after a strategy meeting, we got to talking about other stuff...Eh, you know how it goes."

He trailed off, remembering. He had kissed her. She had let him.

Pikachu flicked its ears and cocked its head.

"Pika?"

Archie glanced over at it.

"You'll get it when you're older, little guy." He let out a low sigh that mingled with the sound of the sea. "She was never there, though—in the morning, I mean. I don't know how she did it, but no matter when I got up, she was always gone already. But that's how she wanted it. Told me up front she didn't want us to be a 'thing,' and that was fine. I didn't care."

"Pika-chu?"

"I'm not sure." Archie sighed again and pulled himself into a sitting position, dusting sand off of the back of his neck and frowning at the shimmering ocean. "None of it's worth shit anymore, I guess. She's dead. But I wish...Hell, I dunno. Wish I'd known more about her. She never wanted to talk about herself much. She was always so...professional."

"Pii-kapi?"

"It wasn't any of my business, all right?" said Archie defensively. "It's not like I really grilled anybody who wanted to join the team. People wanna get away from their own shit and start over, that's fine. I wasn't gonna dig any deeper unless I thought they were the cops. Or one of Maxie's guys." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Shelly, though...She was something else. You don't run into women like—hell, you don't run into people like that every day. Always felt like I lucked out the day she signed up."

Pikachu finished its berry and wiped the juice from its mouth, its ears twitching.

"But I never..."

Archie trailed off, struggling with how best to phrase what had been bothering him, and scratched his collarbone as the waves rolled in and out at his feet. They were soothing in their regularity.

"I never asked," he said finally, "whether she really gave a shit about me, or whether I was just 'the boss.' Y'know? I mean...Hell, I never thought about that either. I didn't need to. She was Shelly—she was just _there,_ she was always gonna be there, I never thought about what would happen if..."

He trailed off again. He looked sombre, and rumbled like a sleeping Snorlax as he watched the water, lightly clasping his hands and resting his forearms on his bent knees. Pikachu scratched behind one of its ears, then hopped up beside him; together they spent a few minutes contemplating the endless sea, side-by-side on the desolate beach.

On impulse, Archie unfolded his bloodstained bandana from his pocket, plucking out something that had been tucked into its center and pinching it between his thumb and forefinger.

"Know what this is, little guy?" he asked, holding it out for Pikachu to see. Pikachu peered at it curiously, sniffing it once, then looked up at him.

"Pika?"

"S'called a heart scale."

It was indeed a heart-shaped scale, about the size of his thumbnail, iridescent and translucent. When Archie held it up to the morning sun, it flashed in every color of the rainbow, like a paper-thin slice of diamond.

"They come off Luvdisc after mating season," he said. "Fetch a pretty penny, too, if you can find a whole one like this. People collect 'em."

He dropped it into the palm of his hand and cupped it there, gazing down at it.

"When I was a kid," he said, "I used to skip school all the time, go diving...Just exploring, y'know. Drove my mom nuts. But then sometimes I'd find one of these and bring it home, and we'd get to eat out at a restaurant on the big island." He half-smiled. Pikachu flicked its ears.

"Chu? Pika_pi._"

"Eh?" Archie glanced over at it. "Nah, she's gone. Been gone awhile. She got real sick, a long time ago."

"Pi_pi_pikachu?"

"Dunno." Archie used his nail to carefully flip the heart scale over in his palm. "Never knew him. She told me he was dead growing up, actually...didn't find out what really happened 'til I was older. Didn't matter anyway." Archie frowned at the glittering scale in his hand, then looked up, out over the ocean. "I tracked him down once, just for the hell of it. Wasn't worth it. He was just some asshole."

He shrugged. Pikachu sighed and shifted to a more comfortable seat on the sand, then scratched behind one of its long ears with its back leg. The morning sun over the sea made the clear water sparkle as though it has been dusted with finely-crushed glass.

"You know what's funny, little guy?"

"Chu?"

"I kinda miss him now. Maxie, I mean."

He laughed a little, bitterly.

"It's like missing a toothache." Archie snorted. "But he was just...I dunno, I was just used to him. He was always something I had to deal with, in the back of my head. Couldn't just go after what I wanted, had to worry about him and what he would do to get in my way. And I had to get in his way, too."

"Kachu?"

"Well, I couldn't let him get ahold of Groudon and have his way with the world, could I? The stupid bastard." Archie scowled, then sighed and rubbed the sunburnt back of his neck, frowning at the sea. "Eh, well...He wasn't stupid. Woulda made my life easier if he was." He shook his head. "But it doesn't matter now. Nothing fucking matters anymore."

Pikachu did not reply. Archie sat in silence for a few minutes, then carefully wrapped the heart scale in his bandana again and tucked it into his pocket. Pikachu did not follow when he set off down the beach; it was clear he had no destination in mind.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"Ugly son of a bitch, isn't he?"

Matt took another swig from the bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and leaving a smear of axle grease in place of beer foam. Shelly and Archie said nothing, but their silence seemed tantamount to agreement as the three of them gazed up at the hulking mass of scale and sinew sleeping in its new chains. It had taken nearly a week to shackle Groudon and move it into the containment chamber; it had not so much as sneezed the entire time. In fact the only thing that proved it wasn't a massive statue was its steady breathing, a low rumble that echoed ominously around them in the metal room. Matt finished his beer.

"We're lucky he didn't wake up," he said, setting the empty bottle down on a large crate. Archie folded his arms.

"We couldn't wake this fucker up even if we wanted to. Well, maybe if we dumped him into Mt. Chimney..." He gazed up at Groudon with a thoughtful expression. "But the only thing that can do it for sure is the Blue Orb, and Maxie's still sitting pretty on that."

Matt used his bandana to wipe the grease from his face—pointlessly, since he was covered in it, having just left the workshop. He ran a hand through his strawberry blond hair, streaking it with black, and then tied his bandana back around his head; when he moved, his toolbelt clanged.

"Boss," he said, "are you sure this was the right idea? Digging this guy up, I mean, instead of chasing down the Magmas." He frowned up at Groudon. "If we'd gotten to Kyogre before them..."

"We couldn't have," said Archie. "That's the problem. There's no way we could have gotten there fast enough, and they've got the advantage anyway—more people, more equipment. Wouldn't have been worth the risk to try and take 'em head-on."

"Yeah, but now they've got ahold of Kyogre."

"We'll get it from 'em, Matt," said Archie. "We've got something they want now. Not that they know yet, heh."

"They'll find out sooner or later," said Shelly, and tossed her head. "And I don't think they'll sit around moping once they do. Archie, sir, what's our contingency plan in case of a direct assault by Team Magma?"

"Assault?" Archie looked over at her. "Nah, I don't think we'll have to worry about that. Maxie wouldn't wanna risk hurting this guy trying to grab him by force. And he'd hate to get his hands dirty in any case."

"What do you think they'll do then, sir?"

Archie rubbed his beard.

"Well, they don't know we were onto Groudon in the first place, so Maxie'll have a heart attack once he learns we've got it," he said with a grin. "After that, though...Knowing him, he'll call a meeting."

"A meeting?"

"Yeah. Say he wants to negotiate, try and lure us out in the main sub—probably offer up Kyogre as bait—and send some guys in to sabotage us and go after Groudon while we're setting that up. Act like a gentleman and then try and cut our legs out from under us, that's his style." He sounded oddly satisfied. "Lucky for us, he thinks I'm a dumbass."

"How's that lucky, boss?" asked Matt.

"Well, he won't know what hit him, will he?" Archie laughed. "He thinks he's so damn classy...Well, we'll play his game. Give him enough rope to hang himself with." He grinned up at Groudon. "We'll make it easy for 'em. Matt, let the Magmas know we've got their Groudon. Talk about it on one of the transmitter channels they're listening to, make it sound like we don't know they're tapped in. Bet you my bandana we get a message from Team Magma before the week's up."

"Will do, boss," said Matt. He tugged on his own bandana. "Tonight or tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow morning, real early. Give Maxie a nice surprise to wake up to."

"And what happens if they do call a meeting?" asked Shelly. "Are we going to turn up?"

"Hell, sure. How else are we gonna get Kyogre? Pretend we don't wanna go, but..." He trailed off, rubbing his beard again, then said, "Y'know, if we play our cards right, we can have 'em both."

"Both Groudon and Kyogre?"

"Why not?" Archie looked over at her, grinning. "We're halfway there already, aren't we? And it's not like we even need to wake up Groudon at all...just so long as we've got ahold of it, keep it away from Team Magma."

"What would we do with it, sir?"

"Anything we want. Nothing, if we want." Archie studied the sleeping giant. "But hell, it seems like a waste to just leave it sitting there...Eh, well, we'll figure something out. Kyogre comes first, that's the important thing."

Matt removed a relatively clean wrench from his toolbelt and absently scratched with it behind his left ear.

"Well, I'm with Shelly about the Magmas," he said. "They're gonna jump the gun as soon as I put the word out that we have Groudon. Don't like the idea of them poking around here uninvited." He nodded to Shelly. "Who was the guy they sent to the Weather Institute? The crossdresser who stole all that data we were after?"

"Brodie." Her eyes flashed at the memory. "The Man with a Thousand Faces."

"You think you could pick him out if he tried to sneak in here?"

"Honestly? No." She sounded loathe to admit this. "He's that good."

Archie rumbled thoughtfully.

"Well...I have a feeling Maxie won't send somebody we know," he said. "You blew that guy's cover before he escaped, so if we're lucky, that'll convince Maxie not to send him out here. But he'll send somebody,that's for sure." He turned to Shelly and Matt. "You both keep your eyes peeled from now on, and tell everybody else to be on the lookout. Double everybody up on patrol shifts. If anybody sets a foot in here who shouldn't, we'll catch 'em before they get anywhere near this guy." He jerked his thumb up at Groudon. "Might wanna put a guard around the cargo container too, just in case. No point in cutting corners when we're this close."

"Yes, sir," said Shelly. Matt saluted with his wrench, then said, "Boss, can I head on out? I wanna try and get that minichopper going so you can take a look at it before the weekend."

"You still working on that thing?"

"It's almost fixed." Matt tucked the wrench back into his greasy toolbelt, adjusting it over his gut. "Just gotta pop the engine back in and run some tests. If I finish tonight I can take a couple of guys out with it tomorrow and see if it flies right again."

"I'll swing by after dinner to take a look at it," said Archie. "Go on out. And make sure you put that transmitter message out first thing in the morning—make it convincing."

"Sure thing, boss."

Matt saluted again, then departed, his toolbelt clanging. The door hissed and whirred when it open and shut for him, sealing itself airtight. Shelly and Archie were left alone with Groudon.

For a minute, neither of them said anything. Archie seemed deep in thought, standing with his muscular arms folded across his chest, gazing up at Groudon with his brow furrowed; Shelly stood silently at attention, watching both it and him. At last he spoke.

"We've gotta send somebody to their base."

He said this resolutely, as though in response to a question.

"It's the only way. If we want to be sure of having Kyogre, we need to snag it before the negotiation. The Magmas will have something planned for then; it'll be easier to screw 'em beforehand, while they're looking ahead. The hard part is working out how to plant somebody in that damn cruise ship of theirs..."

"I'll figure that out, sir," said Shelly at once. "And I'll make a shortlist of people we could send."

"I was gonna send you."

Shelly and Archie exchanged looks. Shelly raised an eyebrow.

"Wouldn't that be a little obvious, sir?"

"Shelly, this is Team Magma we're talking about," said Archie good-naturedly; when she did not respond to the joke, he added, "I mean it, Shelly, I don't wanna leave this up to anybody else. This is important."

"They know me. They know my face."

"They won't see your face under one of those hoods. But, if you really think you can't pull it off..."

Shelly straightened, her scarlet eyes flashing; Archie smirked.

"That's what I thought."

"I only meant, sir," said Shelly coolly, "that it might be better to send someone they won't recognize as easily."

"It would," Archie said, "but I've gotta choose between someone they don't know as well who might not get the job done, and somebody they know real well who _I_ know can make it through—and who can take care of herself if she gets caught." He looked pointedly at her. "We've got the Red Orb, we've got Groudon—we haven't come this far to trip over the finish line. I'm sending you, Shelly. You're the best thing I've got. "

Shelly tossed her hair over her shoulder. She looked mildly pleased, and Archie stepped close behind her, first putting his hands on her waist and then wrapping his arms around her from behind, holding her to him and kissing the side of her neck. She gave an exasperated sigh, neither resisting this nor accepting it, and her indifference seemed to amuse him, because he smiled.

"Aren't you excited?"

"About what?"

Archie rested his chin on the top of her head, staring up at the shackled Groudon with a kind of fierce happiness.

"We're so close," he said. "We're so damn _close,_ Shelly. It's finally gonna happen..."

Shelly looked at him, then up at Groudon. Her gaze upon it was hard—almost belligerent.

"I'll believe it when we've got Kyogre," she said. "A lot could still go wrong before then."

"It won't." Archie said this with the confidence of a man who knew the future. "Everything's worked out for us so far, hasn't it? Couple of screw-ups here and there, but in the long run...We've done pretty good for ourselves, I'd say. And now we're almost to the top."

"Almost isn't good enough."

Archie's low rumble of a laugh rattled off of the metal walls, mingling with the sound of Groudon's breathing. He squeezed her tighter; Shelly rolled her eyes.

"That's why you're Tactical Commander. Always on the ball."

"Someone around here has to be."

Archie laughed again and kissed her neck. His beard tickled, and a smile broke out for a second across her face. In the next moment, though, she had forced it down.

"Come on, Shelly, lighten up."

"I'll lighten up once we've won."

"We will," said Archie in satisfaction. "Everything'll work, and you'll get through the Magmas, and we'll finally have control of Kyogre—and Groudon, too, if we want to keep it. And the whole rest of the world. Anything we want, we can have."

"You're not the one who's got to infiltrate Team Magma's headquarters first."

"You can do it." He nudged the side of her head, making her smile again; this time, she let herself. "You know you can, and I know you can. This is gonna work."

Archie gazed up at the sleeping monster towering before them. He looked fierce, excited; the grin he wore was wicked.

"Everything's gonna be perfect."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Pikachu found Archie lying on the beach. He was sprawled flat on his back with his eyes closed, the waves lapping up around him more often than not; apparently he had laid down hours ago, before the tide came in, and could not be bothered to move now that it was rising. Pikachu blinked, watching Archie lie there as though asleep. When he did not stir, Pikachu hopped over and tickled his nose with its tail. Archie opened one eye.

"Hey, little guy."

His voice was quiet. Pikachu asked a question, but Archie did not answer, instead sighing and closing his eyes. A strong wave rushed forward; Pikachu leaped out of the way, but Archie did not flinch when it splashed against him, soaking his already wet clothes. Pikachu stared, then approached him and poked him in the temple.

"Pi? Kachu."

"What?" Again he opened one eye. "Go away. I'm busy."

"Pi_pi_kachu?"

Another wave. Pikachu jumped onto Archie's broad chest to avoid it, then peered down at him. Archie did not seem to care.

"This is the only thing I've got, little guy," he said, as the water swirled around him, pooling in the depression his body had made in the sand. "Gotta enjoy it."

Pikachu hopped off of Archie when the water receded. It frowned at him, then said something sternly and grabbed tiny pawfuls of his collared shirt, yanking hard.

"What's the point?" Archie muttered, staring at the sky as Pikachu tugged on him.

"Chu?"

"What's the fucking point of being alive anymore?"

Pikachu shocked him.

Archie yelped, the pain shooting through every nerve in his body for a second before the jolt ended, leaving behind a stinging sensation. As he lay stunned, a wave rushed over him, and Archie jerked himself upright, spluttering. Another wave washed around him as he spat out salt water.

"What the hell was that for?" he demanded, wiping stinging water out of his eyes. "Fuck, little guy...Ow..."

"Pi-ka-_chu!"_

"Easy for you to say." He spat out more water, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Don't know any better, do you?"

Archie staggered to his feet, shaking from the aftershock of the attack and the cold of the wind against his wet clothes. Pikachu chattered up at him; he glared down at it in return, his fists clenched.

"That doesn't fucking matter anymore, all right?" he snapped. "Everybody's dead. _Everybody's dead!"_

His rough voice cracked, and he looked away over the water with a strained expression, at once angry and pleading, desperate for some shred of evidence that he and Pikachu were not the last living things left in the world. No such reassurance came. The waves rolled in and out around his ankles; the late afternoon sun glittered beautifully over the surface of the calm ocean. No speck of a ship dotted the horizon. No aquatic Pokémon leaped from beneath the water. No Wingull or Pelipper skimmed the surface of the sea in search of food.

Archie fell to his knees in the surf and sat there numbly, ignoring the waves washing around him. Pikachu hesitated, then approached him, touching his knee.

"Piii-kachu. Pi?"

"I don't have anything left, little guy," he said in a low voice. "Not one fucking thing. I don't even have a picture of her."

Pikachu's ears drooped for a few moments. Then its gaze hardened, and its ears perked back up. It climbed onto Archie's knee and gazed up at him, its small brown eyes glittering.

"Pika_chu!" _it said defiantly, and launched into a diatribe that made Archie sit back and stare at it, blinking. When it finished, it glared up at him; he sighed and looked away, watching the horizon once more. There was still nothing there to look at, but the sea seemed to have a hypnotic effect on him nonetheless—as if the sound of the waves was to him a siren call, singing soft and sweet of how easy it could be to end his loneliness, if he chose. It took a few moments, and another reproach from Pikachu, before Archie shook his head as if to clear it.

"You're right, little guy." He took a deep breath and passed a hand over his stubbled face. "Can't just fuckin' quit. Gotta keep my shit together."

Pikachu hopped off of his knee; Archie pulled himself back to his feet. A wave washed up the shore, making Pikachu scamper up to where the sand was dry, and Archie followed it; together they threw themselves next to a large piece of driftwood. Archie rubbed his face with both hands, as though trying to rid himself of a feeling of sleepiness. Pikachu said something; Archie looked to it.

"You can say that all you want, little guy, but they're not coming back. None of 'em." He shivered again in his wet clothes. "Never gonna see any of those guys again. Never gonna see her."

Another shudder. Salt water dripped from his hairline down across his face, into his beard; he wiped it away.

"Do you think she knows?"

Pikachu looked at him quizzically. "Pika?"

"Shelly. You think she knows I'm sorry?"

"Kachu."

"I know. Doesn't matter, does it? Still..." He gazed out over the water. "Wish I could tell her somehow. Light some incense at Mt. Pyre, leave a note."

Starry nights on the roof of the disguised base, he and Shelly and Matt, Matt tuning a stolen guitar and Shelly curled up in her chair, all three of them watching Lilycove City sparkle in the distance. Talk of plans that had not worked and what new ones should replace them, and then dreams of power (half idle, half confident), what they would do once they had Kyogre at their beck and call. Sooner or later Matt would sing (roughly but on key) whatever shanty had come into his memory that evening, coaxing the melody out of the tired strings, Archie joining in after another beer—and Shelly, the corners of her mouth curled up, closing her eyes and humming under her breath._ Where it's wave over wave, sea over bow; I'm as happy a man as the sea will allow..._

She had died for nothing, for the wild thrill of one moment that had made him feel strong. Archie could not pick apart everything left inside himself and give voice to it; it was too much a mixture, fury and sadness so commingled that to distill them would be impossible. He could not lash out against the force that had taken so much away from him: he himself was that force. He could not forget, could not rush ahead and make new plans and grimly shove what had happened into the depths of his mind: he had nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to obey him. He could not even take satisfaction from the defeat of his enemies, because he felt (sitting there watching the foamy wavelets scuttle up and down the sand) that somehow, Maxie now held something over him. Yes, he was dead, dead and gone—and in death he surely had a kind of peace which Archie did not feel.

He folded his arms over his knees and rested his chin on them, still watching the waves. Over and over, day and night, he had paced this shore and stared furiously out at the ocean, demanding his usual of the world: _give me what I deserve! _And over and over, in the same indifferent tone, the sea had answered him: _you have it._

"Pika_-chu. _Pika."

The comment brought Archie out of his own thoughts. When Pikachu repeated itself, he laughed bitterly.

"You really think so, don't you, little guy? You still think they're out there somehow..."

Pikachu nodded tenaciously. "Pi! Pikapi..."

It looked out over the ocean as Archie had done, but its expression was fiercely hopeful. Archie chuckled, still sounding bitter.

"Figures. Pokémon...You never give up, do you?"

"_Chu."_

"Hmph."

Silence, broken only by the wind and waves. Archie pulled off his wet shirt and meticulously wrung it out before donning it again, grimacing at the sand and stains and rips it had acquired over the past few days. He scratched the back of his neck; sand trapped inside his shirt itched him.

After a while, Archie stood. Pikachu had been lost in thought, but perked up when he moved, looking up at him curiously.

"Pika_chu?"_

"I'm going back to the pool." Archie brushed sand from his pants. "You wanna come?"

Pikachu shrugged, then bounded over, hopping to keep up with Archie as he walked slowly up the beach, the white sand he kicked up sticking to the bottom of his wet pants. But soon he stopped, and Archie stuck his hands into his pockets and squared his shoulders, turning to the right and looking up towards the cliffs with a thoughtful expression, as though mulling over an idea that had come to him unexpectedly. Pikachu stopped too, and looked up at the cliff face, its nose twitching.

Archie, however, was not looking at the cliff itself. His attention had been drawn by the swirl of cloud that lay over the island's center, and he scrutinized it, looking pensive.

"You know what we should do one of these days, little guy?"

"Pika?"

Archie continued to gaze steadily at what little he could see of the great stone tower that rose from the center of the island, its peak hidden by the low-lying cloud.

"We should go find out what's up there."


	16. Chapter 16

Upon awakening and looking at the bedside clock, Tabitha's first thought was that he had slept through roll call. His sense of alarm faded when he realized that not only was he not late, but he would never line the grunts up for morning roll call ever again. He rolled over onto his back, scowling at the ceiling. On the rug beside the bed, Mightyena's ears flicked in its sleep.

He'd had the nightmare again; he remembered it now that he lay there. He wondered if he would have it every night now, or if twice in a row was simply coincidence. Still, it unsettled him enough that he threw off the covers and found a shirt and pants, heading out the door and down the hallway to the polished staircase. When he reached the bottom, he ignored the sounds coming from the kitchen and made for the living room instead, poking his head inside. Finding Maxie sound asleep on the sofa, he returned to the kitchen, curious.

Shelly was already up. She was sitting at the kitchen table over a bowl of oatmeal, one elbow pinning down a piece of paper that she was reading with a furrowed brow; a large stack of paper rested in the center of the table, next to a plate of fresh biscuits oozing with jam. Behind her, Sebastian glided to and fro beside the counter, cooking; when he heard Tabitha enter, he turned.

"Ah! A good morning to you, sir." The butler inclined his head. "Would you care for anything to drink? Coffee, tea?"

"Do you have any protein shakes?"

"I am afraid not, no."

"Then coffee."

Tabitha looked to Shelly, but whatever she was reading engrossed her; she did not even watch her spoon as she ate.

"Where is everyone?" Tabitha asked her, a bit warily. Shelly finally glanced up.

"Not sure. I haven't seen anyone yet."

Sebastian elaborated as he set Tabitha's coffee down.

"Master Juan has gone out on personal business," he said, "and Master Lance came in briefly earlier, around six o'clock. He will return sometime later this morning, he said."

Tabitha tilted his head to examine the topmost sheet of paper of the stack in the middle of the table as Sebastian deposited a plate of hot toast next to it.

"What is all this?"

Shelly looked up again, swallowing a bite of oatmeal before saying, "Lance dropped it off earlier. It's the translations from the Cave of Origin. Everything on top is from that building we explored."

Tabitha took a seat and grabbed a biscuit with one hand, pulling the top sheaf of paper toward him with the other. It was a printout, highlighted in places and scribbled on in others, but not so much that the typed lines of text could not be read. He scanned it, taking a bite of biscuit, then swallowed and read aloud, curious.

"_And it came to pass in the thirteenth year of the reign of Arzu that the rains came early and with exceeding strength, and lessened but little in the course of the season. The rivers swelled as if with child, and the waters of the sea rose to new heights, and the harvests were rotted and turned to mud. And there was much sorrow; and the people wept with one voice, crying, 'We have angered the god of the sea, and in his wrath he has sent this flood to destroy us.' In abundance were offerings and sacrifices made, yet the rains ceased not."_

"That's wrong."

Tabitha looked over at Shelly, frowning.

"Excuse me?"

Shelly swallowed another bite of oatmeal, then tapped her finger against the printout she was reading.

"_And it came to pass in the thirteenth year of the reign of Arzu that the season of rain came not when it was due, and the sun upon the earth was as the heat from the forge. The rivers were soon dried away, and the very waters of the sea sank, and the harvests were parched and withered to dust. And there was much sorrow; and the people wept with one voice, crying, 'We have angered the god of the earth, and in his wrath he has sent this drought to destroy us.' In abundance were offerings and sacrifices made, yet the rains came not."_

Tabitha and Shelly looked at each other with suspicion, as though somehow each considered the other responsible for the drastic variation in the texts. At last Tabitha plucked Shelly's sheet from the table and held it up next to the one he had been reading, comparing them side-by-side.

"It looks like they're both from the same room in that building," he said slowly. "Different spots on the wall, on either side of the altar. Look."

He set the papers down and pointed, tracing his finger across a particular line of text before flipping through the rest of the pages until he found the corresponding photograph. He was correct; both passages had come from the same room, writ high on the wall and framed by carved depictions of the two disasters.

"Why are there two different versions of the same story?" Shelly asked, as much to herself as to him. "They can't both be true at the same time. Either one happened or the other."

"I guess history can have more than one version," said Tabitha. He sounded as if he did not like this idea, and continued flipping through the pages with a frown. His concentration was such that Sebastian, hovering at his elbow, finally had to speak to attract his attention.

"Would you like me to fix you something in particular for breakfast, sir?"

Tabitha looked over at him.

"Grilled cheese," he said at last, and flipped to the next page, running his thumb down the sentences. _"And it came to pass..."_

Before Sebastian could set to work, the doorbell rang. At once he swept away, out towards the entrance hall, and when he returned a minute later he was followed by Lance, who was still wearing the same clothes from the day before.

It looked like Lance had not slept. Dark circles underlined his bloodshot eyes, and neither Shelly nor Tabitha could understand the greeting he threw their way as he made for the coffee machine on the edge of the counter. A moment later, he collapsed into a seat at the table, a cup of coffee in hand, his cape hanging over the back of the chair. He tore into the nearest slice of toast, not even bothering to smear pecha jam onto it from the nearby jar.

"Morning," said Shelly. "Long night?"

Lance washed his dry toast down with coffee, then took another slice and smothered it in jam.

"Yeah. Got some sleep, but mostly I've been running back and forth, trying to talk to ten people at once." He stuffed the toast in his mouth; it was a while before he had swallowed enough to speak clearly again. "Turns out we did pretty well yesterday, with all the pictures. HQ was able to get a rough translation done of all of the stuff; almost nothing was too blurry to read." He poked the pile of papers in the center of the table, then looked to Tabitha. "Where's Maxie?"

"Still asleep," Tabitha said, then added, "I don't think he's feeling very well."

"Well, get him up, would you? I want him to take a look at all of this."

"It can wait."

Lance frowned.

"Look, we don't have time for this," he said, jabbing a half-eaten piece of toast in Tabitha's direction. "Go get him, or I will. This is important."

Tabitha's fists clenched. He hesitated, but stopped himself from saying anything, instead turning and marching down the hall towards the living room. Lance shook his head and slathered butter onto another slice of toast, topping it with liberal amounts of jam.

He had eaten another whole slice by the time Tabitha returned to the kitchen, apparently unaccompanied. Lance dusted crumbs off of his hands.

"Where's Maxie?"

Maxie appeared in the doorway. His coat was missing, and his clothes were disheveled; he looked paler than usual, and queasy. Without saying a word, he eased himself into a chair and rested his forehead against the knuckles of one hand; the smell of food seemed to bother him. Lance tossed one of the packets of paper across the kitchen table, and Maxie opened one eye when it bounced off of his elbow.

"Morning. Take a look at this," Lance said. "Photos are on the bottom, translation's on the top. What do you make of it all?"

Maxie winced as he fumbled with the stack of paper, leafing through the first few sheets. Lance kept talking.

"Just got it in a couple of hours ago, my people were up all night translating. Haven't heard back from Professor Alden yet, but I'll keep checking; I want a second opinion. We need to figure out how much of this stuff is true—if any of it is. Might not be any use to us at this point."

"Not so loud, please," Maxie managed. Lance gave him a look, then took a swig of coffee.

"Look, we're racing against time here," he said shortly. "I'm guessing you haven't watched the news? Kyogre's headed this way again."

This made Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly all look to Lance as one. Lance finished the last third of his coffee in one gulp.

"It made a loop around Pacifidlog Town in the middle of the night, and if it keeps going straight, the storm will be back here day after tomorrow. I don't know how well the city will stand up to another hurricane, but I guess we'll find out if we stick around."

"What about Groudon?" asked Tabitha.

"Haven't talked to Bart since three o'clock this morning, but the last I heard, it was on the move. It hasn't caused any major shocks, but there was a little tremor up near Mt. Pyre in the middle of the night...scared people, but didn't do much else. There's a slight chance it could be headed our way, too, but it's hard to tell. Its trajectory is a lot more difficult to map than Kyogre's."

"They're both coming here?" asked Shelly. "Kyogre _and _Groudon?"

"Well, Kyogre is." Lance spoke over the rim of his coffee cup. "That's why we've gotta tear through this stuff as fast as we can. We have to find some answers before things get any worse. Eastern Hoenn's infrastructure is already shot to pieces—all it would take is one more quake to make it unsalvageable. And who's to say the two of them will stick to Hoenn forever? It's their home turf, but if things keep going like this..."

He resumed attacking his toast. Shelly and Tabitha looked disturbed, but Maxie seemed too physically miserable to be able to add psychological disquiet on top of it. After a valiant struggle, he groaned and surrendered, pressing his forehead against the tabletop; the rest of the table turned to look at him.

"You all right there?" Lance asked, raising an eyebrow. Tabitha glared at him. Maxie raised his head again.

"Excuse me for a moment," he said weakly, and pushed his chair away, staggering back the way he'd come and disappearing into a hallway bathroom, shutting the door a little too hard behind him. Everyone pretended not to hear the retching noises that followed—or at least, Tabitha and Shelly did. Lance did not seem remotely bothered, and continued munching his toast; by the time Maxie reappeared, he was well through another slice.

"Feel better?" he asked, as Maxie gingerly retook his seat.

"Not particularly..."

Lance shook his head and said, "There's something specific I want you to take a look at. Here."

He shuffled through the stack of papers, then pulled out a couple of sheets and passed them over. Maxie's gaze dropped to a section of the text that had been highlighted yellow.

"What is this?" he asked.

"Don't know. I was hoping you would. Does any of that sound familiar to you at all?"

"What does it say?" Shelly asked. Maxie glanced over at her, then cleared his throat and read, somewhat hoarsely.

"_But mightiest of all is the emerald. By its power alone could the clash between the god of the land and the god of the sea be ended, and to enshrine it was the throne of heaven built, so that it might forever have a place of honor."_ He paused. "There's a note here on the side..._zumrud."_

"That's the original word," said Lance at once. "It means _emerald, _but there's a whole passage about it there at the end, and I don't think it's literally talking about a jewel. You said the Red and Blue Orbs are called _ruby _and _sapphire, _right?"

"Typically, yes."

"So do you think," Lance pressed, "that maybe this 'emerald' thing, _zumrud—_it could be an object that has the power to deactivate the Red and Blue Orbs? It seems to me that if nothing else, it at least has a calming effect on Kyogre and Groudon, which is exactly what we need right now. Do you think it could be...I don't know. A Jade Orb, or something like that?"

Maxie frowned and rubbed the corners of his mouth with one hand, his brow furrowing at the paper before him.

"That...is certainly a possibility, I suppose. I had never seen mention of a third Orb...But of course, if it was created after the Red and Blue Orbs, it wouldn't have been mentioned in any of the sources I had..."

"I don't know what else it could be," said Lance. "I mean, it says right here it has the power to quell the fighting between Kyogre and Groudon, so it must be something the Mizu'a created to stop the rampage of those two Pokémon. And if it's more powerful than both the Red and Blue Orbs combined...well, it's no wonder they sealed it away somewhere safe." He scratched his chin. "The question is, where is that _somewhere? _And is it still there after all this time?"

"I wouldn't doubt it," said Maxie; Lance looked at him, and he expounded, "Well, logically...You realize, the Red and Blue Orbs had gone undisturbed for hundreds of years before I..." He glanced to Shelly and Tabitha. "That is to say, until we sought them out. I, for my part, spared no expense in discovering the secret of their existence and hunting them down, and yet it still took many years to find them. So, I would be very surprised if this _zumrud _object has ever been found, by happenstance or otherwise. If the only record of it is within the Cave of Origin, which itself is a closely-guarded secret...Well."

He shrugged. Lance munched thoughtfully on his half-dozenth piece of toast.

"Fair point," he said. "The Embedded Tower might have some mention of it, but the whole thing hasn't been gone over yet, and in my mission briefings we just focused on the information about the Red and Blue Orbs. My main contact at HQ said she'd take a second look at all the other material, so hopefully she'll have that ready by tonight. And Wallace and Steven have already gone down to the Cave of Origin again; they'll be in there all day collecting information. I told them to come here when they're through."

Maxie set down the paper, and Lance pulled it towards himself again, frowning at it; crumbs from his toast sprinkled it like raindrops.

"It's just that the way this passage talks about it," Lance mused, "it makes it seem like this is a thing we could hunt down—this _emerald, _whatever it is. I just don't know how long it'll take, or where to even start looking. 'A place of honor'..."

"The Throne of Heaven." Tabitha pondered this phrase. "What is that?"

"Your guess is as good as mine—maybe better, actually." Lance shoved the paper across the table, leaving jammy fingerprints on it; Tabitha picked it up. "'Throne of Heaven' is only one way to translate it; apparently it's a little vague. There's notes on the back...Anyway, the word for 'throne' also means _seat _or _chair _or _resting place. _And the 'heaven' part could also just mean _sky. _So all we know is that the _zumrud, _this 'emerald' with the power to stop Kyogre and Groudon, is located at the Throne of Heaven, or 'rests on the seat of the sky,' or something like that." He shook his head. "Doesn't make any sense to me. What about the three of you?"

Maxie held his chin and slumped forward, his brow furrowed; Tabitha looked nonplussed, and Shelly just shook her head, saying, "I've never heard of anything like that before."

"Doesn't ring any bells with anything you've ever found in ancient texts?"

"No."

Maxie closed his eyes, looking sick to his stomach. Lance seemed unsatisfied.

"That's a setback. I was hoping you three might know something. I only heard about all of these Hoenn myths during my first briefing two months ago; you three have been at this for years."

"Well," said Shelly, "you can't expect us to know everything. If we _had _known more about Kyogre and Groudon, and the Orbs, we wouldn't have gone after them in the first place."

When she looked to Tabitha and Maxie for confirmation, Tabitha nodded stiffly; Maxie, however, looked like he was trying very hard not to vomit again, and rested his head in one hand, shielding his eyes from the light.

"All right, well—that's disappointing," said Lance, "but if we don't know, we can at least take a guess. If there's any chance that this emerald thing still exists, then we need to go after it, fast."

"How are we supposed to do that?" asked Tabitha. "Once Kyogre gets near Sootopolis, the weather distortion will make traveling impossible."

"Well, then we'd better figure out where the heck to start looking and get out of here before then." Lance swallowed a final bite of toast for emphasis.

"So basically," said Shelly, "we have two days to decide where to go search for something we've never seen, that has powers we're only guessing at, hidden in a location that we aren't sure exists."

"That's about it." Lance nodded to her. "Sounds right up your alley, really."

He scooped up the rest of the papers and tapped them against the tabletop to align them, then reached for his coffee cup; finding it was empty, he stood and swooped over to the pot on the counter, dodging Sebastian, his cape swishing. He poured half a cup, chugged it, and then said to Sebastian, "Thanks for breakfast."

"Are you going out again, Master Lance? I had hoped you might stay for a bite of something more hearty."

"No, thanks. Maybe when I get back."

Lance produced a metal thermos from somewhere and dumped the rest of the pot of coffee into it before screwing the cap back on and turning away.

"I'm off," he announced to the others. "Going to see if Professor Alden's gotten back to me. If not, I'm headed to the Cave of Origin to see what Steven and Wallace have found besides weird rocks. Need to borrow one of Juan's Pokémon..."

He trailed off, evidently making a mental note to himself of this, then said, "I know you probably want to go back to the Cave of Origin, but I'd like you three to stay here and keep looking all of that data over. Maybe we'll get lucky and you'll recognize something useful buried in there." Shelly raised an eyebrow at him, and he added, "Can't hurt, might help."

She could not argue with this. Lance grabbed a napkin off of the table and wiped jam from his face, then dropped it into his chair and hurried away, the sound of his boots in the entrance hall punctuated after a moment by the front door slamming. With him gone, the kitchen suddenly seemed oddly silent. Sebastian flipped over a grilled cheese sandwich he was frying, then scooped it onto a plate and brought it over.

"Your breakfast, sir," he said cordially, setting it in front of Tabitha, who grunted a thanks before tearing into it. It was not until he was nearly done that he noticed just how nauseated the smell of it seemed to make Maxie, and he scooted his chair a little further away, finishing the sandwich with much more deliberation. Sebastian took his plate.

"No, thanks," said Tabitha, before Sebastian could even offer another. "I'm through."

Shelly had finished too, and when Sebastian took her bowl away she wordlessly stood, thumbing through the pile of papers and selecting a few before vanishing in the direction of the living room. Tabitha watched her go with a slight frown of suspicion, then turned back to Maxie.

"Do you need anything, sir?"

Maxie mumbled something that might have been, "I need to lie down and die."Tabitha looked concerned, but Maxie just pressed his knuckles to his forehead and closed his eyes, wincing. It was obvious that he did not want to be engaged in conversation, and so Tabitha, after a minute's hesitation, got up from the table and headed upstairs. As soon as he had gone, Maxie set his forehead down on the tabletop, clutching the edge of it with one hand, groaning quietly.

A clunking noise at the table make him look up again; Sebastian had set in front of him what appeared to be a milkshake. It smelled as though it had gone slightly off, and Maxie made an odd noise before swallowing.

"Ah...thank you for the thought," said Maxie, "but I don't feel I'm quite up to something that substantial. Perhaps for lunch..."

The butler smiled knowingly.

"I had noticed. This is not a proper meal, but it will help alleviate your discomfort, if you can manage to drink the whole thing."

"I see." Maxie gave the concoction a closer study, looking wary. "What's in it?"

"You might be happier not knowing, truth be told," said Sebastian, "but it will help."

"Are you quite certain?"

"Perfectly." Sebastian bowed lightly. "I pride myself on my hangover remedies. Preparing them is one of the three things a butler of any caliber should be able to do flawlessly."

Maxie winced, then sighed and pulled the drink closer, fighting down nausea before taking a sip. Luckily it did not taste as foul as it smelled.

"What are the other two?" he asked, forcing himself to take a larger gulp and pulling a face after he swallowed it. "The things a butler should do flawlessly."

"Clean to spotlessness even the dirtiest pair of shoes," said Sebastian, with perfect composure, "and lie convincingly to guests' spouses."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Shelly spent the early part of the morning in the living room with the television on low, sitting in an armchair with her legs curled under her, some of the papers from the Cave of Origin spread out on the ottoman and coffee table. These she studied intently, but the word _Lilycove _on the news never failed to make her jerk her head up and increase the volume on the TV, waiting for any scrap of information that might tell her, directly or indirectly, whether Matt and the others were alive. Tabitha joined her soon after breakfast, but for a long time they did not speak, ignoring each other entirely; Tabitha pored over some of the Cave of Origin papers that Shelly was not studying, dividing his attention between them and the television. Twice Sebastian came in and asked if either of them needed anything, and both times received completely independent answers from the both of them—as though the other person were not even in the room.

They had been sitting like this for over an hour before Tabitha's voice cut over the sound of the TV.

"Have they said anything about Mossdeep?"

When Shelly looked up, she found Tabitha studying her from his seat across the way.

"Not that I've heard. But I've only been listening for Lilycove."

Automatically, they both looked over at the television. A blue-haired reporter with dark circles under her eyes was walking along a crowded pier, the camera that filmed her shaking a little with each footstep; Shelly turned the TV up.

"—can see, the Cianwood harbor is just not ready to handle this influx of people from the Hoenn region. Even though the tsunami damaged the western part of the island most heavily, here in the east is where the direct earthquake damage was more severe, and authorities are still trying to coordinate—"

"Cianwood," Tabitha muttered. "That's in Johto, right?"

"I think so."

They exchanged looks. Shelly turned the volume back down and resumed leafing through the papers in her hand; Tabitha did the same.

Silence again. Neither of them minded it; it was easier and more comfortable than talking, as they had discovered yesterday while exploring the Cave of Origin. In the past, there had been a vicious playfulness to their rivalry, born of each's confidence that it would be their own organization who triumphed, and that their enemies, however threatening, lacked something fundamental, because they did not grasp the truth of which power was the stronger. That playfulness had disappeared, crushed by the discovery that they had both been equally, horribly wrong. Now only a grim understanding was left between them, and Shelly and Tabitha had found that there was too much weight hanging over both of them to make sparring enjoyable anymore. There was a certain tact, then, in this silence. It made it possible to work together, now that it was needed above all else.

Neither of them said anything as the morning lengthened, and eventually, without a word, Tabitha went to walk Mightyena out in the garden. Shelly watched the news for a while, but learned nothing useful about Lilycove, and finally stacked the Cave of Origin papers together again and got to her feet, leaving the papers on the coffee table. When she went upstairs, she at first made for her room, then remembered there was a sort of den further down the hall and headed there instead. Beyond the billiards table, a pair of glass doors opened up onto a wrought-iron balcony that overlooked the sprawling grounds; Shelly strode to it.

When she cracked open the door and stepped outside, she realized both that the balcony was longer than she'd thought, and that it was already occupied. Maxie stood on the far right end of it, looking like he'd just had a shower, gazing out over the well-kept gardens and what was visible of the harbor and city beyond them, sloping away down the crater. When he glanced at her, Shelly frowned.

"Sorry," she said flatly, but did not leave; she did not want to appear as if she were afraid of him.

"Has someone come by with news?" Maxie asked her. Shelly shook her head, then stepped out onto the balcony and closed the door, moving to its other end, so that there was a good six feet between them.

"No. I just wanted some fresh air."

"Ah."

Maxie did not seem to be bothered by her presence; he stood with his arms resting on the balcony railing, his shoulders slumped, looking tired and a little ill—though not nearly as much as he had at breakfast.

"Feeling better?"

He blinked, then glanced to her.

"Quite a bit, yes. Thank you for asking."

He either did not hear or chose to ignore the faint amusement that had been in her voice. His attention returned to the city before and below them, and most of all, to the harbor clogged with ships; Shelly could not know his thoughts, but wondered if they were the same as her own. As she watched the busy water, she could not help but feel that the people leaving Sootopolis were flying from one danger into another, from the known to the unknown; there was no guarantee anymore that anywhere in Hoenn was actually safer than a city in the path of a hurricane. She wondered how many of those leaving now would suffer no less elsewhere, from the next great upheaval that Kyogre or Groudon would cause. That event, at least, was a certainty. After what she had seen at Monsu Island, there was no doubt in Shelly's mind that the two Pokémon would fight again, and the force of that clash would be enough to rock Hoenn to its core. It was only a matter of time.

"I suppose you must miss him," said Maxie.

This was not a good choice of icebreaker; Shelly stiffened and clenched reflexively at the wrought iron railing.

"I'm trying not to, thanks."

"I apologize. I had assumed..."

"Assumed what?"

"Well...I had thought perhaps Archie might have...meant something to you personally, outside the scope of your team."

"Don't rub it in. It's already been done."

She did not explain this, but her gaze hardened.

"I can't believe I was stupid enough to trust him." Now she glanced over at Maxie. "But it's no skin off your back. I guess _you_ always knew what he really was."

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean," said Maxie. "If you're referring to how he died...I expected that no more than you. Even I would not have thought him so barbaric." He frowned. "I can only assume the Red Orb had something to do with it. Though how much, we'll never know."

Shelly did not latch onto this potential excuse. Instead she set her jaw, then said, "I just want answers. And if he weren't dead I'd wring them out of him."

"Well." Maxie set one elbow on the railing. "I suppose it's small comfort, but he'll never trouble either of us again."

"He never troubled me. That's the problem."

Her tone made it clear that this was a flaw on her part, that she was as much of a failure for not anticipating Archie's betrayal as he was for committing it.

"But he's gone," she added, before Maxie could push the subject further. "So whatever he was doesn't matter now. And there's more to me than what I had with him."

"I hadn't meant to imply that there wasn't. Though in my defense, I don't know anything else about you. And I assume you'd like to keep it that way."

Shelly just nodded, not looking at him.

"You're right," she said flatly. "I want to keep it that way. Besides...I am who I am because of the mistakes I've made. I'm not ashamed of what I've done."

"I wish I could say the same."

This answer surprised Shelly. Maxie smiled bitterly as he gazed at the distant harbor, packed with ships bearing the luckiest of Sootopolis's citizens away from the approaching storm.

"I'm not proud of this," he said simply. "Are you, commander?"

"No," she admitted, after a pause. "I can't say I am."

Together they watched the city in silence. Juan's property sprawled so far out that little noise from the immediate neighborhood reached them, and yet the crater walls seemed to funnel the sounds from down near the harbor up toward them, the hundreds of noises at the packed dock all mingled into one faint echo. Maxie looked weary, Shelly noticed—more than physically so. It was as if the disaster of the past few days, the realization that he could no more control Groudon than he could lasso the moon, had extinguished a driving fire inside his soul, and now only cold ashes remained. He was looking over the harbor with an expression that showed, quite clearly, that he saw the destruction there as the work of his own hands, not of ancient Pokémon or cruel fate or capricious forces of nature. His will, as much as Archie's, had set this into motion.

"Can I ask you something?"

Maxie regarded her skeptically.

"That would depend on the nature of the question. What is it you want to know?"

Shelly let go of the railing and rested an elbow on it instead.

"I was just curious," she said slowly, "how you and Archie knew each other. He never explained, really...He just said you two were friends for a long time. It seems...strange."

"Hm." Maxie allowed himself to dwell on this. "Well, I don't deny it. We were quite close for a few years. Certainly we had our differences—a great many of them—yet for some reason...Well, I don't know how to explain it. We simply understood each other, somehow."

Shelly tried to picture it, but it was difficult. Archie had been boisterous and brash and more than a little crass, sometimes, for all his undeniable cleverness; it was hard to imagine him being good friends with someone like Maxie, who seemed much more sophisticated in his habits, more reserved in his behavior. Maxie stuck his hands in his pockets.

"Why did you stop being friends?" Shelly asked.

"For a number of reasons. I suppose you could say it was because our differences finally caught up with us. To tell you the truth..."

He trailed off, weighing his words. At last he continued.

"I've never cared to admit this, but originally, Team Magma...Archie and I were supposed to create it together."

Shelly studied Maxie's profile, trying to decide if he were pulling her leg.

"You understand, this was many years ago. It wasn't 'Team Magma' then, it was simply a formless idea, a vision I had...A vision _we _had, I should say. Capturing one of Hoenn's super-ancient Pokémon and using its power...We each found the thought exhilarating, in our own way. And Archie was always the most...Hmm. Not _enthusiastic,_ I was no less so than he, but Archie...He never doubted that we could achieve what we desired, no matter what evidence stood to the contrary. He simply had an unshakeable faith that if we truly devoted ourselves to it, we could capture Kyogre or Groudon—even when it was only a fantasy, with nothing behind it except our youth and ambition.

"But the longer we talked about it, the more we came to disagree: on the methods, the reasoning, which legendary creature was the worthier one to pursue, and what to do once we had it...For a while it seemed as if we could work in tandem, each focused on the Pokémon we desired most, but in the end, the depth of the disagreement put too much strain on our friendship. There were other reasons, too, why we fell apart when we did...But when we both at last realized that we could work together no longer, Archie swore to me that if I ever succeeded, if I ever managed to put together a task force to acquire Groudon, he would do everything in his power to stop me, and find Kyogre. I promised the same to him. But, as it happens, I formed Team Magma first...though that was years later. Long after Archie and I had stopped speaking."

"Did you ever talk to him again? Once you found out about us."

"Once." Maxie nodded. "Some years ago, when I had first gotten Team Magma off of the ground, and Team Aqua had only just come into being; it was before your time, I think. I suspected who might be behind Team Aqua, and I was correct...We contacted each other and agreed to a meeting. Under the table, of course; I did not tell my team about it, and Archie supposedly did not tell his. We wanted to see if we could work out some kind of compromise, whether perhaps time had done something to temper the other's judgement..." He smiled wryly. "But it was pointless. I was just as bitter at his foolishness and arrogance as I had been when we had our falling out, and he felt the same about me. We parted yet more determined to see each other undone." He nodded towards the distant harbor away and below, towards the ruined ships and damaged buildings. "And this is the fruit of our labor."

As one they looked back out over Sootopolis City. What the shape of the crater had spared it, the storm had done its best to make up for; the further down the hollow one's eye traveled, the worse the damage became. Some of the more disused lower streets on either end of the wide harbor had been filled with collected debris, for lack of anywhere better to store all the broken and mangled things that had come rolling down through the steep streets during the recent heavy rain. Shelly took her elbow off of the balcony railing.

"I used to come here every summer," Shelly admitted. "When I was growing up. My aunt lived here for a long time; I'd stay with her for a month right after school let out."

"I suppose you have many good memories of this city, then."

"Most of them are good. Some of them, not so much."

Silence. Maxie rubbed the side of his head, as if his dulled hangover had spiked again. He sighed and dropped his hand.

"Well," he said, as though he were wrapping up a long discussion instead of breaking silence, "I suppose I had best go downstairs and look over that information from the Cave of Origin. With any luck, I'll notice something..."

His tone made it obvious he did not think such a miracle likely, but nevertheless he turned and disappeared back into the house; Shelly heard the door open and shut gently. She remained alone on the balcony, watching the distant activity in the harbor, her gaze sometimes wandering over the rest of the city. Juan's manicured property sprawled directly beneath her, and looked, against the backdrop of the rest of Sootopolis, like a garden of tranquil green in the middle of a besieged fortress.

It wasn't as if she was a pacifist, Shelly thought. She had never had any qualms about using force, and the threat of force, to get what the team wanted, if that was the most efficient way. The important thing to her had always been the mission; anything and everything was justified in light of the coming reward. None of the sacrifices would matter once they had control of Kyogre and became more powerful than anything else in the world.

Shelly had to stifle something that might have been a laugh, her grip on the balcony railing tightening. She wondered if she had ever had more reason to mock herself in twenty-seven years, staring out over what she had helped do to Sootopolis City. The power of the sea...She remembered the thrill of joy that had set her heart racing the moment she had broken into the containment chamber on Team Magma's ship and seen, for the first time with her own eyes, the magnificent form of Kyogre, chained in its arid tank, sleeping...And she had woken it with that same joy, and thought—as it thrashed in a rage, smashing a hole in the steel belly of the ship to dive into the ocean—that this was the moment when her dreams would become reality, that this creature would obey them, and do what they wished with the sea...

Well. Kyogre was certainly doing what _it _wished, and the schemes of Team Aqua mattered to it not an iota. If one could even speak of a thing called 'Team Aqua' anymore, for that matter. Shelly did not want to believe it, but knew that there was only the slimmest chance that Matt and the others at the base had survived the earthquake and tsunami. The rest had quit after Monsu Island, Brooke remained loyal only because she looked up to Shelly, and Archie had killed himself. Shelly _was _Team Aqua now, and singlehandedly bore half the responsibility for what was happening to Hoenn. It was not a burden she would have chosen to shoulder, had there been a choice, but there was not.

Shelly turned away. The past was taboo to her; the future, mere fear and uncertainty. All that was left was the present moment, and she found little comfort in it. She knew how to fight and steal, but there was no one to battle, and nothing to take. The only solution that might exist was buried somewhere in the cryptic writing and carvings that adorned the Cave of Origin, and she had spent her morning studying those to no purpose whatsoever. It was impossible to tell what was fact and what was myth, which lines of verse were poetry and which were history—or if there were any difference at all. She knew that the only productive action she could take was to keep poring over those pieces of information, but she did not relish the thought of returning to it, after such a fruitless, frustrating morning. She wanted to _do_ something.

Shelly paused with her hand on the door handle and turned to look again over Sootopolis City, bright and still beautiful in the late morning despite the visible damage from the hurricane. It would be good, she thought, to talk a walk.


	17. Chapter 17

Juan returned home just before noon, bringing with him news straight from the mayor about how Sootopolis was preparing itself for the approaching storm, and word that Wallace and Steven had not yet emerged from the Cave of Origin.

"I've no idea whether they've found something substantial, or whether dear Steven has become distracted by the cave itself," said Juan, "but either way, they ought to be here for lunch. I hope they found something worthwhile."

He listened with interest to Maxie's summary of the information Lance had brought in. Juan, too, had never heard of the Throne of Heaven.

"Of course," he pointed out, "it's quite possible we know of the place already, under another name. But unless we have some idea of what it looks like, or what it's near, I'm afraid we have no hope of locating it in time. You say you intend to go search for it before the storm hits?"

"That seems to be the plan," said Maxie, "though whether we'll succeed is another story." He held a hand to his chin, scowling at the printout he was studying. "I don't honestly think we'll hit upon a probable location in the next forty-eight hours. We've precious little to go on."

"Even if you do come up with a place," Juan replied, "there's still the problem of getting out of Sootopolis."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, they're trying to evacuate a fraction of the city today and tomorrow, before Kyogre gets too close. The hospitals and other facilities are already in such a state that it seems wise to try and remove those most at risk—people who are already injured and the like. So the harbor is quite busy, and there isn't a ship to spare—unless you happen to want to go back to Mossdeep, or to Izabe Island."

"We might," Maxie answered. "That's just the trouble. We've no idea where to begin looking for this..." He flipped the paper over. "...'zumrud'. Or _what_ it is, for that matter."

"I don't envy you. It's quite enough dealing with the fact these legends exist without trying to put a stop to them, too."

Wallace and Steven did not, in fact, turn up for lunch, and after eating it himself, Juan announced he would go see what the situation in the Cave of Origin was, leaving Maxie and Tabitha alone in his enormous house (Shelly had left earlier on a stroll). Maxie made camp in the dining room, spreading the paperwork Lance had brought in over the long mahogany table and pacing around it, studying everything, once in a while reshuffling the papers to set certain photographs and translations beside one another. He had just taken a seat at the head of the table when Tabitha stuck his head in the doorway from the direction of the kitchen.

"Are you having any luck, sir?"

Maxie looked up from the paper he had been examining; when he did so, Tabitha saluted. As Tabitha was wearing ill-fitting civilian clothes, he looked more comical than he seemed to realize, and Maxie could not suppress a smile, though it faded quickly. He shook his head.

"Any luck...Well, if you mean, have I come across anything that might be useful to us, then I think not. But the fact of the matter is that I've no way to be certain." He gestured with the piece of paper he was holding to the others carpeting the rest of the table. "Much of this seems immaterial—accounts of which kings left which offerings at the Cave of Origin upon which occasions, things of that sort. Fascinating in a historical sense, useless in a practical one. I've yet to come across anything that makes further mention of the emerald. Or if it has, it's been so roundabout that I haven't noticed." He rested one elbow on the table and pressed his fingers to his temple, his eyes running back and forth across the paper. "I only wish I still had all of the information I had already accumulated...Cross-referencing this to it would have yielded something, I'm sure of it. It never entered into my head that there could have been a third Orb created; it's very possible we already had some data about it without even realizing it. But there's no way to know now."

He seemed to realize he had begun talking more to himself than to Tabitha, and stopped.

"Is there anything I can do?" Tabitha asked, stepping into the room and surveying the scattered papers.

"I've no idea, to be honest. I'm simply reading through everything, trying to see if any of it references the emerald again, or if anything rings a bell..."

Tabitha pulled out one of the high-backed chairs to Maxie's right and took a seat, then picked up the nearest piece of paper and scowled at it. He looked so determined to be productive in the face of all obstacles that Maxie stifled a laugh, which made Tabitha look up at him.

"Do you not want me to help, sir?"

This seemed to trigger something inside Maxie, because he heaved a sigh much more dramatic than the question had warranted, setting down the paper he had been reading and leaning back in his chair, which creaked.

"I honestly don't know what I want anymore, Tabitha. For so long I knew exactly what I wanted, and now..." Another sigh. "Tabitha...I've yet to apologize properly."

"For what?"

"Well, for making a spectacle of myself last night, for one. Thank you for assisting me."

"We all have our moments, sir. You don't have to thank me for doing my job."

"Tabitha, it's hardly your job to babysit me when I'm behaving like an ass." Maxie paused, reflecting, then asked, "I didn't—ah, vomit on you, did I?"

"No, sir."

"Good. I couldn't quite recall..." Grimacing, Maxie put a hand through his hair. "Again, I'm sorry for all of that. And I apologize for ignoring you beforehand, as well. I was being petty. I know I had wanted you to stay at Mossdeep with the others, but in retrospect...Well, I don't think I would like to be doing all of this on my own, either."

Tabitha nodded, then said, "I'm sorry for disobeying orders, Maxie."

"But I shouldn't have tried to make you stay behind. Really, you were correct—you've just as much right to be here as I do. It's not as if you've put any less of yourself into the team than I have. Though that's the last thing I want to think about at the moment..."

"What is?"

"How pointless all of this has been."

"I don't think it's been pointless, sir."

Maxie seemed ready to argue this, then thought better of it, saying instead, "You don't have to call me 'sir' anymore, Tabitha, if you'd prefer. It's no use pretending there's a need to be regimented any longer."

"Yes, sir."

Tabitha realized what he'd said and looked annoyed with himself, but Maxie laughed—genuinely.

"I suppose it's a hard habit to break; don't trouble yourself over it, if it's a bother. I just thought, given the state of things, it might be odd to remain formal."

"The state of things?"

"Well, look at us." He brushed the front of his overcoat, still hopelessly stained even after being washed. "Look at what's become of Team Magma, in so short a time."

"That doesn't matter, Maxie. You're still in charge."

"Oh, hardly." He ran his thumb over a gruesome stain near the hem. "Really, I think I'm just some man in an odd coat at this point."

"Well...In that case, I'm just some guy named Tabitha."

Tabitha shrugged, and Maxie could not help but smile, though he shook his head while he did. After a beat, he said, "You know, Tabitha, I've always wondered..."

"Wondered what?"

"Why is it that you choose to go by your proper name? I would have thought you'd use a nickname of some sort."

"Do you not like it?"

"It's nothing to do with my opinion—I don't care one way or the other. If anything, I think it's unique. I simply would have supposed that you'd find it...mm...well, perhaps not _embarrassing, _but...You understand."

"Yeah, well, I usually go by it." Tabitha shrugged again. "Took a lot of crap for it as a kid, but...It's my name. Besides—I'm probably the only guy named Tabitha in Hoenn. So, in a way, I've always thought it was special."

"Well, there's nothing unusual about wanting to feel special. Heaven knows I have enough experience in that regard."

Tabitha paused, then asked, "Your name is Maximilian, right?"

Maxie looked mildly surprised that Tabitha knew this.

"Yes, that's right. Though I've never been terribly fond of it, to tell you the truth."

"Why not?"

"Well...Because it's unwieldy, I suppose. A bit pompous."

"I think it fits you. It's dignified."

"Hm...Perhaps." Maxie rested his head against the high back of his chair, gripping one of the polished armrests. "But when I was younger, I quite hated it. The only person who ever called me _Maximilian_ was my father, and even then, only when he was angry—which wasn't often. I suppose it wouldn't be strange to go by it now, but I've been called Maxie for so long...Ah, I don't know. I'm not certain I could suddenly get used to it, after all these years." A pause. "But listen to us. Talking about names..."

He trailed off, leaning back in his chair once more and putting one elbow on the armrest, so that he could prop his cheek against his fist and study the sea of paper from a little distance. It struck him that he felt oddly relaxed, because this was a situation he understood, that was familiar: sitting in front of an enormous amount of paperwork, trying to pick tantalizing hints of information out of the myths of the ancients, with Tabitha at his elbow to carry out whatever he decided next needed to be done. The thing he was searching for had changed, the reason he wanted it had changed, and he was quite aware of the fact that he was sitting in someone else's dining room, and not his old office. But there was still a comfort in having even this much to cling to. Tabitha's presence in particular was like a ghostly impression of normality.

"Maxie?"

Maxie blinked and looked over.

"Yes, Tabitha?"

Instead of speaking, Tabitha hesitated, as if trying to decide how best to say what was on his mind. It piqued Maxie's curiosity, though when the words came, he was not surprised by them.

"Sir...you shouldn't blame yourself for everything that's happened."

Maxie smiled, then sighed, both in a bitter way that made Tabitha sit up straighter.

"Tabitha, please stop trying to make me feel better about all of this. The thought is appreciated, but really...Who else is to blame?"

"I am," said Tabitha at once. "And the rest of the team. And Team Aqua."

Tabitha had a strangely intense, eager expression, and it almost made Maxie smile, because he understood it. It was exactly as if Tabitha had been watching him carry a physical burden ever since Monsu Island: _That's too heavy for you, sir. Why don't you let me help?_

"That's kind of you to say, Tabitha."

Tabitha laughed a little. It was such a surprising sound—Maxie had never heard him laugh, really—that when Tabitha noticed his reaction, he silenced himself at once.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's just that I don't think I've ever been called that before."

"Called what?"

"Kind."

Maxie smiled again, wryly.

"Well, there's a first time for everything, I suppose." He adjusted himself in his chair, trying to get comfortable against the high wooden back, and looking away to idly study a painting on the far wall. "Though you must think less of me, after all of this."

"Not at all, sir."

"Hm. Well, I'm afraid I must question your judgement, then. A fine mess this old fool's dragged you into...you and the whole rest of Hoenn."

Maxie expected an argument—something reflexive, unthinking, _don't say that, sir—_but nothing came, except the faint noise of the television from the other room, a sort of doleful hum. When Maxie spared Tabitha a glance, he found him looking frustrated, and it was such a rare sight that Maxie took note of it.

"What's troubling you, Tabitha?"

Tabitha hesitated, then asked, "Maxie...Do you think I'm stupid?"

He asked this without a trace of either sarcasm or malice. Maxie was taken aback.

"Of course not, Tabitha. Why in the world would you presume that?"

"Well, you just said you'd question my judgement if I didn't think less of you now." Tabitha paused, then elaborated, "I'm not trying to be disrespectful, sir. But the way you've said things lately, sometimes it sounds like you think that the only reason I'm here is because I'm too dumb to go anywhere else. Like I'm just running on autopilot because I can't think for myself, outside of Team Magma."

A flash of surprise, mingled with guilt, crossed Maxie's face.

"Tabitha, I..." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Forgive me. I hadn't meant any offense to you. I was simply trying to express the idea...Well." A sigh. "It seems I've given the wrong impression. Of course I don't think you're stupid, Tabitha, not at all, and I'm sorry if I've ever implied otherwise. I don't have an idiot for a commander."

"Well, I don't have a fool for a leader."

They stared at each other, Maxie in surprise, Tabitha with a kind of unassuming conviction. The distant television babbled.

"Does it bother you that much, that I say that?" Maxie asked at last. Tabitha nodded.

"You shouldn't keep being so hard on yourself," he said. "All of this isn't just your fault. You couldn't have done it without the rest of the team. We all wanted to find Groudon; we all believed in you. I still do. And I don't think that makes me an idiot." He held his gaze. "I'm not going to just throw Team Magma away the moment things get rough."

From his darkened expression, Maxie gathered he was thinking of Courtney. Maxie exhaled through his nose, ready to offer an argument about the virtues of self-preservation, but something in the corner of his eye distracted him, and he looked to the door. Tabitha's Mightyena had poked its snout around the edge of the doorway and was peering into the dining room.

"I'm busy right now," Tabitha told it, and its ears flattened. It turned away.

"It's all right." Maxie extended a hand invitingly, and Mightyena perked up at once, trotting into the dining room and burying its muzzle beneath Maxie's outstretched palm. It growled happily when he scratched it under the chin, then sat on its haunches, throwing Tabitha a smug look, well aware of what an honor it was to receive attention from master's master. When Maxie gave it one final pat on the head, it snorted, then moved over to lie down underneath Tabitha's chair with its front paws crossed; its tail swished over the hardwood floor.

"Well," said Maxie, "I suppose it's all neither here nor there at this point. The only thing that matters anymore is this." He nodded to the papers strewn over the table. "Our only chance of solving this crisis is buried somewhere in here. Or so I hope. If not..."

"We'll find something," Tabitha said firmly, as if to reassure himself as much as Maxie. "We have to."

He stood up and gathered a handful of loose papers, moving down the table to lay them out neatly; Mightyena raised its head to watch him. His sudden, determined diligence was almost amusing, born as it obviously was of a need to feel in control, even when there was very little to do.

"I'll look at this part down here," he told Maxie. "It'll go faster with two of us splitting things up."

Maxie studied Tabitha. It occurred to him (not without some surprise) that in the past, his conversations with Tabitha that did not center on the team's affairs had been few and far between. Courtney had never hesitated to offer her opinions, but Tabitha had always been like a mirror that reflected back to Maxie his own thoughts. Talking to Tabitha now, after all that had happened, was like waking up to find that mirror turned to glass, and through it, Maxie could suddenly see the human being that had always been on the other side. His grand vision, however hollow, had given this young man a place in the world—a way to be powerful and respected—and Tabitha's gratitude for that was stronger than even the most savage earthquake, the most vicious thunderstorm. Realizing this made Maxie laugh a little, not because it was funny, but because he suddenly felt like a piece of the guilty weight in his chest had been chipped away.

"Sir?" Tabitha asked, looking up. Maxie shook his head.

"It's nothing, Tabitha." He sighed, smiled, and then pulled another piece of paper closer. "I'm just glad you're here."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Shelly found that she still remembered the way, even after all these years. She did not go there, at least not at first, but as she walked the streets of Sootopolis with her hands in her pockets, she found herself being drawn to the place as if hooked on a fishing line, circling around blocks and zigzagging up side streets, but never quite managing to head in a different direction entirely. After an hour of aimless walking past houses and shops and pale-faced strangers, she realized she was now only a few blocks away, and paused at the tangled junction of half a dozen back alleys, watching a flock of Wingull soar over the rooftops and swoop down towards the harbor; even this far up the side of the crater, she could still taste the salt of the sea. It was not until she had been standing there for nearly a minute that she looked down and noticed the girl.

She looked about eight, and was clearly lost; however, she did not seem frightened. Instead she darted back and forth across the alley, gazing up at the sides of the buildings, searching for the usual brass plaques that gave the street name. Here there were none, and the girl turned in circles, sometimes jumping, as though a street sign might simply be hiding higher up the side of the building, where she could not readily see it. Suddenly the girl noticed Shelly watching her.

"Are you lost too?" she asked at once. "I thought this was a shortcut."

Shelly considered this question.

"Maybe a little bit," she admitted. "I know where I am, but not where I'm going."

"Oh. That's opposite of me."

"What do you mean?"

"I know where I'm going, but not where I am."

The girl did not sound troubled by this, except marginally, and frowned hard up at the side of the nearest building as though willing a sign to appear there.

"And where are you going?" Shelly found herself asking, though she did not much care about the answer.

"Well, I _was _going down to the harbor..." The girl pulled a face. "But it's _sooo _crowded. So I came home. But I took a different way and now I'm confused. Do you know which way it is to Coral Street?"

"Yes."

The girl perked up, delighted; however, Shelly did not move.

"Can you maybe show me?" the girl finally asked. Shelly frowned, glancing up at the sky, then shrugged and started walking.

She kept the same pace and posture as before: hands in her pockets, her chin high, striding determinedly; she did not slow down for the girl, or indeed acknowledge she was being followed at all. The girl did not mind. She trotted a few paces behind, happily ignoring Shelly's recalcitrance and asking a great number of questions as they walked along the rough cobblestones, Shelly's boots clacking.

"Hey lady, what's your name?"

"That's not your business."

"Are you from around here?"

"Not really."

"Then how come you know where Coral Street is?"

"I used to come here sometimes."

"Where do you live?"

"Lilycove City."

"Really?" The girl trotted faster. "Are you stuck here? A lot of people are stuck here."

"You're awfully nosy, aren't you?"

"Yup." The girl trotted a little faster, so that she was only just behind Shelly, looking up curiously at her. "What are you?"

"What do you mean?"

"What's your job? My dad's a musician."

"I'm a pirate."

She'd said it sarcastically, but the girl's eyes widened all the same.

"Oh my gosh, really? That's _so_ cool!"

"Not always."

The alley finally opened up onto a larger street, though it was quite as empty as the network of back streets had been. Still, the girl darted out into it, announcing, "Oh, I know how to get home now! Thanks a lot!"

"Kiri!"

The girl and Shelly both looked down the cobbled street. A middle-aged woman was hurrying up it, her floral house dress flapping; when she reached the girl she stopped and pressed a hand to her chest, panting, then bent and hugged her tightly.

"Kiri, you _unbelievable_ child! Oh my goodness, I've told you not to run off, where on Earth have you been? I've been running up and down the street, I almost went for the police—"

"I went to look for Dad," said the girl, unabashed, "but the harbor was busy and then I came back and got lost. But then this lady showed me the way so it's okay."

The woman noticed Shelly, still standing with her hands in her pockets, looking disinterested.

"Did you walk her home? Oh, thank you so much—Kiri, say thank you to the nice woman."

"I did!"

"Thank you for bringing her home, ma'am."

"I didn't—" Shelly tried, but the woman was just as talkative as her daughter, and took Kiri's hand while continuing to speak to Shelly.

"Would you like to come have some tea? I suppose you're as busy as anyone, but really, I can't thank you enough—walking Kiri home at a time like this—I'm Hana, by the way—"

"I'd rather not," Shelly said, but the woman did not even seem to hear.

"—a few minutes, it's just up the street. Thank you again for bringing Kiri back, I was so worried—"

The woman tugged on her daughter's hand and started walking. Shelly's immediate desire was to simply turn and walk the other direction without a word, but in the interest of seeming like a normal person, she forced herself to follow, keeping her hands in her pockets as if clinging to some semblance of nonchalance. They walked for perhaps a minute (Hana talking the entire time; Shelly did not listen) before turning onto another narrow, cobbled street, which Shelly recognized at once.

Coral Street had not changed. The houses running down either side of it looked like one long, continuous, whitewashed building whose roof alternated heights; only the differently colored front doors and the brass plates beside each one spoke to the fact that these were two long rows of houses, each narrow but two- or three-storied, pressed up against one another so tightly that they were all connected at the sides. Instinctively Shelly gazed down the left-hand side of the street as they walked, looking for that green door, and to her enormous surprise, Hana and Kiri halted when they reached the place where it should have been—number 22. Hana stepped up and unlocked the door, which had been repainted yellow. She was still talking.

"—for the state of things, you know, I haven't been keeping tidy like usual—"

Shelly did not follow right away. She stood in the sunlight on the threshold, staring at the ajar door; the brass knocker shaped like a Pelipper (its left wingtip chipped) was still in place. Then, with a resolute expression, she stepped inside.

Somehow, she had expected familiar scents to hit her—drying herbs and baking cookies and the salt of the sea in the breeze that came through the windows. Only the latter remained. The scents with which her aunt had once filled this house were not inextricably tied to it, and there was no reason they should have lingered longer than she did. Shelly closed the door behind her and walked into the kitchen, her eyes darting for familiar sights that were no longer there. The furniture was different, and so were the curtains, and so was the bright wallpaper. Yet the house itself—the shape of it, the rooms, its essence—had not changed.

"Would you like some tea, dear?"

Shelly did not have to answer; Hana had already set a steaming mug of it on the kitchen table, and Shelly found herself sitting behind it, still trying to take in every detail of the house without looking like she was doing so.

"My husband plays in the Sootopolis Philharmonic," Hana was saying, "so I don't really think he'll be able to get us a place by influencing someone. But it's worth a try, at least, and they say they're doing all they can to make it a wide lottery...What about you, dear? Are you trying to get out?"

"No," Shelly heard herself reply, studying the potted plants on the windowsill. "I only just got here."

"She's from Lilycove!" Kiri piped up; she was sitting backwards on an armchair in the tiny living room.

"That's true," Shelly admitted. "But I haven't been...home...since the earthquake. I don't know whether it's still there."

"Do you live close to the shore?"

Shelly pictured the base hidden far out in the cove, and the perfect view of the city skyline it had offered at night.

"Right on the water," she said aloud. "I don't think anything's left."

Hana patted her hand sympathetically; it took Shelly by surprise.

"It's all right, dear. I understand. In times like this, no news isn't very good news, but still...We all want to hope."

The woman went off on a story, about a cousin or some other relative in Lilycove; Shelly only halfway paid attention, as she still found the house itself distracting.

Of course it was still here. Why wouldn't it be? It was not as if the place should have magically crumbled to the ground just because Shelly had chosen to forget about it. Stranger still—almost baffling—was this woman who lived here now, if only because for so long, Shelly's worldview had only extended far enough beyond herself to include the rest of Team Aqua, and by necessity anyone who interfered with or influenced them. It was unsettling to suddenly be subjected to the worries of someone who bought groceries and paid taxes. Shelly had never thirsted for a normal life, even when she'd had one; _be a good girl, _and _don't get into any trouble, _and _stay away from people like that, _had never worked on her. And what did she have to show for it now? What had she achieved in the years since she last sat in this kitchen? She'd reached up as high as she could, tried to grab the whole world for her own, and all she'd really accomplished was breaking open the cage of creatures that might sweep that whole world away.

So maybe that was the tradeoff. Ambition earned you power, and power earned you respect, but mediocrity bought you a clean conscience.

"They've been saying on the radio that it's probably a Pokémon that's causing all of this," she heard Hana say, when she refocused again on the conversation. Shelly stiffened; her hostess did not notice. "Can you even picture it? A Pokémon that could cause a natural disaster! I just can't imagine it. Well, I know there are some Pokémon that can affect the local weather for a little while, but not anything like this. This is terrible."

Shelly nodded, sipping her tea blankly.

"I suppose it's because I've never had one of my own," Hana continued, "but I've always thought of Pokémon as very...tame. Like people that can't speak, really, that we live alongside and share our lives with. But, you know...times like this...It reminds us all how mysterious and powerful Pokémon really are. In a way, I suppose it's their world, and we humans just happen to live in it too." She stirred sugar into her tea. "Oh, but listen to me...I'm sorry. It's just with all of this happening, you know, sitting at home with the radio on all day...I start to think about all kinds of silly things." She sighed. "But, it is what it is. And whether a Pokémon's causing it or not, at the end of the day...We've all got to work together to pull through this tragedy. We have to put our differences aside and help out our neighbors."

Kiri poked her head over the edge of the table.

"Mom, when is Dad getting home?"

"I don't know, Kiri. He's trying to find us a ride on a ship, so probably he won't be home until late tonight."

"If we get on a boat, where will we go?"

"Anywhere we can, sweetie." Hana sighed and poured herself more tea. "Anywhere we can."

"Are the lights gonna come back on?"

"Not for a while, Kiri. They're having rolling blackouts all over the city, we won't get power until later."

"Can I go up on the roof and watch the boats?"

"If you promise to be careful. And if you tend to the berry trees while you're up there."

"I will!"

Kiri sped away, disappearing up the steep stairs to the second floor; Hana sighed.

"That child...She's a handful. But she's always happy, bless her. She's taken all of this better than a lot of people. Not even the storm frightened her...she thought it was exciting." Hana shook her head. "But I'm terribly sorry, I'm a nervous talker. Here we are, having tea, and I haven't asked you one thing about yourself yet..."

"That's all right. I shouldn't be talking to civilians anyway."

She had not meant to say this, and berated herself inwardly once she had. Hana looked slightly taken aback, her thin eyebrows raised. Shelly recovered herself.

"I'm a consultant to the police," she admitted at last. "Part of a special commission. We're trying to figure out a way to put a stop to all of this. That's why I came to Sootopolis yesterday."

She did not expect the woman to believe her, even though it was not wholly a lie; Shelly knew she hardly looked the part of anyone in authority. Luckily she was not wearing her bandana; she had found it more useful as a hair tie lately, and such was its function at the moment. But then again, Shelly doubted it would have meant anything to the woman if she had been wearing it. The team had never run any missions here.

"Oh my goodness." Hana's eyes widened. "You brave woman. Have you had any luck? But I suppose you're not allowed to say..."

"We have some leads. We just have to follow them." Shelly frowned down at her tea. "We're still waiting for some data to come in. I took a walk to clear my head, but I can't stay and talk, and I'm not supposed to tell anyone what we know. It might start rumors."

Hana nodded understandingly, then said, "Well, of course that's sensible. Hard enough keeping people from panicking and saying the most outrageous things..."

Shelly nodded, letting the woman fill in the silence with whatever her imagination conjured. She did not want to talk—least of all to a stranger, and least of all here, in this place at once familiar and alien, full of ghosts she'd thought she had exorcised. She studied a pair of salt and pepper shakers on the table, shaped like a Volbeat and Illumise; her aunt's had been two Luvdisc.

"I should go," said Shelly. She looked up at Hana, who was watching her curiously. "I've been gone for a while. They might need me." She paused. "Thank you for the tea."

She had not taken more than a few sips, but Hana seemed to have finally picked up on just how unwilling to talk Shelly was, and for a moment there was an awkward silence that Shelly did not try to fill. At last Hana cleared her throat.

"Well...Of course, I'm sure you have lots of work to do. Everyone's busy all the time now, that's simply how it is...I'm terribly sorry if I've kept you away, I really didn't mean to. Thank you again for bringing Kiri home for me."

"It was nothing." Shelly stood. "Thank you for inviting me in. I'm sorry I can't stay."

"It's fine, dear, really...We all have a lot on our minds..."

A stream of well-wishes and polite nothings followed Shelly to the door. She said something equally empty and polite back, setting off up the street, and only when she heard the door close did she stop and turn to look back. Number 22 looked just like all the other houses: the white exterior, the colorful door, the low balcony on the flat rooftop, which itself was adorned with small potted berry trees. Shelly tried to remember whether her aunt had ever kept berries, and found that she could not.

She had not thought about this place in years, and yet her refusal to do so had not destroyed it. Her aunt had long since moved; Shelly had long since moved on. But whether she chose to acknowledge them or not, the house and the memories and past all remained, and as she watched the sun shimmer on the white rooftops she found herself grudgingly in acknowledgement of the irony (if that was what it was called) of being lured to this place again. It was as if the past were trying to reach out and grab her, to prove it still mattered—to prove to her that she was weak and human, and did not have the power to erase, with her determination alone, all that had once been. It carried through into the present, and she could not deny it, or destroy it, or by ignoring it make it meaningless, no matter how hard she tried. _You would do well not to hold your hate too closely..._

As if it were that easy.

As Shelly turned to leave, scowling, movement on the roof caught her eye, and she looked back over her shoulder. Kiri was watching her from over the balcony, only the top half of her head visible.

"_Bye, pirate lady!"_ Kiri called, waving. Shelly did not wave back.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Lance reappeared around three. He did not even bother to use the front door, touching down on Dragonite in the middle of the grounds and swooping in through the side door that led into the living room—startling Shelly, who had returned from her walk some time earlier and resumed watching the news. When she learned he had no new information, she returned her attention to the television, but Lance's arrival lured Maxie out of the dining room. Lance was only too happy to have someone to vent to.

"I can't find a boat," was his frustrated complaint, between bites of the sandwich Sebastian made him. "Not even a dinghy. Evacuating the hospitals and everything else is taking up all the water transport. Doesn't help that I don't know where we need to go in the first place."

"Did Steven and Wallace find anything more inside the cave?" Maxie asked. Lance swallowed a large bite of sandwich, hitting his chest with a fist to force it down.

"Not sure yet. They went through that shrine one more time and took some things down, but I don't know if it's anything useful. It seems like we hit the highlights yesterday." He nodded to the stack of papers. "What about you? See anything worthwhile in all this?"

"Actually, I believe I have."

This made Lance put down his sandwich and stand up, the better to see as Maxie pulled a few pieces of paper out of the stack in his hands and arranged them side-by-side.

"I've been looking at the _zumrud _passage closely. See here, these are the characters for the words _Throne of Heaven." _He pointed to a grainy image on one of the sheets, a magnified portion of a washed-out photograph of the cavern wall they had studied the previous day. "This phrase appears nowhere else in the translated text. However..." Now he moved his finger over to another sheet. "This photo is from another place entirely, inside the shrine on the second level. Here are the symbols again. See, they're quite stylized; one could easily mistake them as being embellishments on this carving itself, and so your translators overlooked them altogether, but I believe it's intended to be a label. The Throne of Heaven might be this."

Together they stared. The characters had been cut into the lower part of one of many intricate carvings of people and Pokémon; this in particular was an obelisk with a decorative serpent coiled around it.

"It looks like a tower," Lance said slowly.

"That was my thought as well. 'To enshrine it was the throne of heaven built'...It would make sense, then, if the Throne of Heaven was a structure like this. Some sort of tower or monument. There are quite a number of similar ruins scattered throughout Hoenn; we've certainly dug through plenty of them."

Lance gazed at the paper, then thumped Maxie hard on the back, startling him.

"Good work," he said. "I never would have noticed that otherwise, in the middle of all of this. Now all we have to do is figure out where this tower is and get there, fast."

"That's hardly a minor detail," Maxie said. "Who's to say this tower even still exists? A ruin or hidden cavern is one thing—a freestanding structure is another. If it's in any way conspicuous, I doubt that it and whatever was inside have survived intact all these years."

"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Lance picked up the paper. "A tower...All right, then."

He turned away at once.

"Where are you off to now?"

"Talk to HQ, tell them about this," Lance answered. "I'll ask them to review all their data and make a map of all known ruin sites in Hoenn that contain anything like this. Then you all can mark off which ones your teams have already checked out in the past. Should give us something to start from, anyway."

"And what if this place is entirely unknown?" Maxie tried to ask, but Lance was already out of the room. Maxie put a hand through his hair, sighing and looking across the table plastered with printouts; he could just barely catch the sound of the television from the distant living room, still spouting statistics.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Lance took another two hours to return, during which time Wallace and Steven came by in search of him, leaving when Maxie reported he had gone out again. Juan was not with them, but they said he had gone to speak with some people in town, and would be back eventually. Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly were thus left alone again for the tail end of the afternoon, which they spent in the living room, watching the news. Sometimes words passed between them, but it could not have been called conversation; the closest they got to that was when Tabitha asked Maxie whether it was possible to contact the Space Center, to which Maxie had no answer.

"I suppose Lance might be able to do it, through the police forces," he said, "but really, there's no need. We haven't been gone long, and they know not to expect contact from us for a while. I'm sure everything there is under control."

"I'd still like to know," said Tabitha, frowning. Shelly chimed in, making them both look over at her.

"If you figure out a way, tell me," she said, "or pass on orders to Brooke along with your own."

"What orders?"

"'Carry on as directed.'"

The two commanders exchanged looks of understanding.

When Lance reappeared near dinnertime, he had with him a sheaf of papers, each one a map of a different section of Hoenn; these he threw onto the kitchen table and announced, "Well, here we are. This is what we've got to work with. If this Throne of Heaven thing isn't one of these places, we're at a dead end."

The four of them arranged the papers so that they fitted together to form one larger map, and Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly did their best to remember everywhere that Team Magma and Team Aqua had ever excavated. It transpired that Team Magma had done much more work of this sort than Team Aqua, who had made it a general policy to follow Team Magma's activities and interfere if necessary, rather than do much ruin hunting on their own.

"Why bother?" Shelly said, when Tabitha pointed this fact out accusingly. "You're the experts on the land; it made sense to let you do all the work for us."

Tabitha scowled, but Maxie accepted this half-compliment with dignity, marking off a ruin site near Oldale Town with a pencil.

"It's no use quarreling over it now," he said. "We'll need to pool our knowledge if we've any intention of getting this accomplished. Though I can't say my hopes are high. If Kyogre arrives in Sootopolis the day after tomorrow..."

"It will," said Lance at once, "and probably before dawn. We need to leave tomorrow somehow."

"And go where?" asked Tabitha.

"Great question." Lance scratched behind one ear, grimacing down at the different maps. "And I don't know whether we can manage it in the first place. Worst case scenario, we hop on one of the evacuation boats and go back to Mossdeep, but I'd rather pick one of these sites and start searching right away. The trouble is that no one's got a spare ship to lend that can take us wherever we'd like."

"You've had no luck finding transport, I take it?"

Everyone looked up. Juan stood framed in the doorway that led to the entrance hall, surveying them all with interest, and when he shrugged off his coat, Sebastian appeared from nowhere to take it away. Lance shook his head.

"None on my end. What about you? Did you manage to pull us some strings?"

"I did my best," Juan said, bowing, "but I am afraid the situation is beyond the influence of even my celebrity. However..."

He trailed off.

"However what?"

"Well...I cannot say it is a sure thing, but I do have some fresh news from the harbor that I think will bode you well."

Maxie, Tabitha, Shelly, and Lance exchanged glances.

"What is it?" Lance asked. Juan plucked at his mustache.

"Captain Drake is back in town."


	18. Chapter 18

"Got any Seadra?"

"Go Fish."

Craig swore under his breath and drew another card from the pile on the floor. Max sniffed and pushed his glasses up his nose.

"How are you so bad at this?"

"I'm not." Craig glowered, reorganizing his hand. "It's just luck of the draw, all right? Ain't my fault."

"But you're _so bad."_

"Shut up."

"Got any Remoraid?" Stanley asked Sierra. She threw a card at him, scowling.

The four of them sat in a circle near the wall in the Space Center lobby, out of the way of foot traffic. No one paid them any attention, as the three grunts had taken off their red hoods in order to be less noticeable. Sierra chewed her lip and reorganized her hand of cards, then demanded a Wailord of Craig, who shrugged; she drew a card from the crooked pile between them all. When Derek stomped up to them, ducking beneath some caution tape, the only one who spared him a glance was Max.

"Here you are," Derek said sternly, looking between them. "Quit screwing around, you three. Get back to your posts, or else."

"Fuck off, Derek," said Craig, without looking up. "Got any Spheal?"

Max grumbled and forked over one of his cards. Craig sorted his hand again, looking smug. Neither Sierra nor Stanley acknowledged Derek's presence at all, and after looking intensely exasperated, he stomped away again, heading for another pair of Magma grunts near the front doors who seemed to be more or less doing their jobs. Only Max was interested in watching him go.

"Aren't you guys supposed to be doing what he says?" he asked the others.

"Yeah," said Sierra, "but he's just Derek."

Max shrugged and pushed his glasses up his nose again.

"Whose turn is it?"

"Mine. I think."

But instead of asking any of them for a card, Craig sat there with a morose expression, his face dark with anger, as if Derek's interruption had kickstarted some train of thought the game had hitherto distracted him from.

"Yo, Craig, you gonna play?" asked Stanley.

"Three days, man."

Craig said this suddenly, sullenly; Sierra and Stanley gave him annoyed looks. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of the dirty T-shirt he'd stolen from a stranger the day before.

"Come on," he said, looking between them. "Three fuckin' days since they left and we haven't heard shit. I told you they were ditching us."

"The boss didn't ditch us," said Sierra. "I swear, Craig, if you say that one more time—"

"Well, what else do you think happened?"

"Probably," said Max, who had heard enough of this before to understand what was being said, "they don't have a way to contact you here. I mean, what are they supposed to do, call the Space Center toll-free or something?"

"Man, nobody asked you, shortie," Craig snapped. "And anyways, I'm sick of this place." He frowned around at the Space Center: the crowd that never dissipated, the lights that only worked when their section of the city wasn't under a blackout, the dirty linoleum that had been their chair, table, and bed for days. "Shoulda snuck off this morning..."

"What, you gonna ditch us too?" asked Sierra. "If you wanted to quit the team, you shoulda done it when Courtney and them left."

"Yeah, I shoulda," Craig agreed fiercely. "'Cause I thought we were gonna fuckin' do something instead just sitting around here hauling shit and listening to people bitch."

"Only one bitching here is you, Craig."

"You know what I'm talking about." He waved with his hand of cards at the rest of the Space Center; Stanley craned his neck to try and see what they were. "Fuck, man, what's the point of all this? This what Team Magma is now? Bunch of fuckin'..."

He couldn't even find an appropriate word.

"Losers?" Max offered. All three of them glared at him.

"Hey, kid, watch your mouth," said Sierra. "We're not losers."

"Yeah, well, you sure seem like it," said Max, a bit haughtily. He adjusted his glasses with one hand. "I mean, what is it you wanted to do again? Expand the land mass, or something?"

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Brock finished counting the water bottles in the third box and marked it off on the tally sheet taped to the table, then closed the cardboard lid. The box was too small, and he had to sit on it to make the lid fold down all the way before duct taping it shut and writing the checkpoint number on the side in black marker.

"Done," he announced. "Next one."

Brooke's Crawdaunt pushed the next box towards him, then clacked its pincers; he rubbed one of the sensitive joints of its carapace, and it gurgled happily. Brooke peered at him over another stack of boxes.

"You through with the water?"

"Not yet. Looks like there's enough for one more."

A flattened box appeared around the stack above him, clutched in a gloved hand; Brock took it and unfolded it, taping it inside to make sure it was secure. He started setting water bottles in it, laying them on their sides to form rows; Brooke assisted him. When Brock spoke, he tried to sound casual.

"So, you still haven't heard back from the rest of your team?"

"No." Brooke set another few water bottles into the box, starting another layer. "I haven't checked yet today, but..."

She sighed grimly.

"Were a lot of your friends back there in Lilycove?"

"...Yeah."

She did not elaborate. Brock paused his work to regard her, then said, "I'm sorry about that."

"It's not like you knew them."

"I know. But I'm still sorry." He resumed packing water bottles. "Besides...My friends and I did run into some of you guys sometimes, on accident. Like at the Weather Institute outside Fortree City."

"That's really weird that you all were there the day they ran that mission," said Brooke. They had talked about this before, but she had nothing better to say. "I mean, what are the odds?"

"Yeah, I know." Crawdaunt handed Brock a bottle of water; he set it in the box. "But crazy things like that always seem to happen to us. I feel like my friends and I are always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe the right place; I'm not sure. Either way, we get into a lot of scrapes."

Silence again. Crawdaunt scuttled back and forth between Brock and Brooke, its legs making a strange clicking sound on the linoleum. When it gently pinched Brock's shirt, he laughed.

"All right, but just one. I haven't had time to make any more, and I've got my own Pokémon to feed."

He dug into his pocket and pulled out a pellet of his handmade Pokémon food, feeding it to Crawdaunt, which munched it contentedly as it turned and skittered back to Brooke's side. She stopped what she was doing to rub the star on its head.

"You know," said Brock, "I've been curious about something."

"What?"

"If you're okay with me asking...Why did you join Team Aqua in the first place?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Brock looked taken aback by her curt tone, but shrugged it off.

"I didn't really have a reason; I was just wondering, that's all. It's just sort of an unusual career choice. And your leader didn't seem very...inspirational."

Brooke looked away, as though embarrassed.

"He wasn't always like that," she said. "The boss could get really scary when he was mad, but usually...I mean, he could be fun, too."

"Yeah?"

Brooke nodded. When Brock did not seem to believe her, she added, "Like one time, last year, we pulled off a tough mission, so the boss took us all to a hot spring spa. We'd just scored a bunch of cash, so we could afford it pretty easy, it wasn't like he was making a sacrifice, but...y'know, it was still a cool thing to do. I'd never been to a hot spring before. It was really nice."

"So...you liked being with Team Aqua, then?"

"I guess." Brooke shrugged. "There was always a lot of work to do, and most of the time, what we tried ended up not working. And there was Team Magma to deal with...But that never made me want to quit. It was like a challenge. And I always thought, being on Team Aqua, I'd get the chance to do big things."

"Waking up a super-ancient Pokémon _is _a pretty big thing," Brock admitted. "Even if it wasn't such a great idea."

"Yeah, well..." Brooke looked flustered, glaring off to the side. "It seemed like a good idea, all right? The way the boss explained it. He always knew what he was doing. And listening to him talk, it was like...I thought, as long as I was with the team, I could do anything. I could really be somebody. Once we got Kyogre, then all of us could do anything we wanted..." Her tone hardened. "Guess it's stupid now."

"I won't act like I get it," Brock admitted, "but I guess everybody needs an idea to hold on to. Something big to shoot for. Like me..." He set down another water bottle. "I want to be a Pokémon breeder someday. And May wants to be a top coordinator, and her brother Max wants to be a Gym Leader. And Ash..."

But he trailed off, and looked away across the lobby, frowning. Brooke followed his gaze. Ash had been sitting in a chair across the room, watching television, but Brendan had approached him; they seemed to be talking. After a bit, they got up and walked away, Brendan in the lead.

"What about him?" asked Brooke.

"I'm worried about him," Brock said finally, still watching Ash and Brendan from afar. "He's been really withdrawn these past few days. It's not like him at all, so I'm afraid that he'll do something reckless."

"Like what?"

"No idea." Brock shook his head. "You can never tell with him. But I know he's gotten really stuck on the idea of going to Sootopolis City."

"Sootopolis..."

Brock looked over at her. "What about it?"

"Well, to tell you the truth...I wish I could go there too," Brooke admitted. "I haven't heard from anybody, not Commander Matt or Commander Shelly, and I just...I feel kind of lost."

"I think we all do."

They exchanged looks. Brooke fiddled with her hair tie, then said, "I'm gonna go check for news. Can you finish this by yourself?"

"Yeah. It's just one more box."

Brooke nodded to him, then told Crawdaunt to stay put and headed away. Brock watched her go, then returned his attention to Ash and Brendan, sighing and shaking his head.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Brendan led Ash all the way to the back of the lobby. It wasn't quite private—not a dozen feet away, people bustled back and forth, heading to the stairs and elevator—but there was an empty stretch of wall and a pair of plastic chairs available, and Brendan set these up with a formality that made Ash, once they both sat, look over at him curiously. Brendan adjusted his hat.

"So, what did you wanna talk about, Brendan?" Ash asked.

Again Brendan adjusted his hat, as if to stall for time. Then he studied Ash.

"Well, Ash...I know you've been going through a rough time these past few days, without your Pikachu..."

Ash stiffened, but did not interrupt. Brendan stopped to gauge his mood, then continued.

"I just wanted to tell you a story," he said. "About something that happened to me once."

Ash nodded. Brendan seemed to be searching for how to begin, and gave the busy Space Center a long, sweeping look before speaking.

"When I first started my journey as a trainer," said Brendan, "I was really full of myself. I mean—I thought I already knew everything about Pokémon, you know? Growing up in my dad's lab, I was always around them. So even though I never had one of my own 'til I got Kip, when I started off to try and make it through the League as a trainer, I thought I was pretty hot stuff. I figured I would breeze through all the Gyms and be ready months before the next tournament." A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I guess everybody thinks that starting out, huh?"

"I always kind of do," Ash admitted, sharing Brendan's smile. Brendan continued.

"Anyway...The very first Pokémon I ever caught on my own was a Taillow, in Petalburg Woods, a week after I started my journey."

Ash perked up a little.

"That's where I caught my Swellow," he said, "when it was a Taillow, too. It was the first Pokémon I got in the Hoenn region."

"Tough little suckers, aren't they?"

Brendan and Ash exchanged knowing smiles, but Brendan's was a little strange—almost sad. Ash noticed right away.

"What happened?"

Brendan tugged at his hat, pulling it lower over his hair.

"Well...Like I said, I was pretty full of it back then. So as I kept going through the woods for the next couple of days, I trained Taillow really hard—harder than I should have. I wanted it to evolve into a Swellow as soon as I could, since I knew it would take more work to get it to evolve than Kip. Well, you've been to Petalburg—those woods are crawling with Wurmple, and I kept sending Taillow out to battle them, since it had an advantage and they were pretty easy to spar with. But..."

He sighed and rubbed the back of his head.

"Well, thing is...One night, around dusk, I was training Taillow to use Wing Attack, and this Wurmple hit it with a Poison Sting. It was a direct hit, but I didn't care; Taillow had taken a dozen of those before. But...it got poisoned that time." When Ash nodded, but did not look alarmed, Brendan sighed again. "But the problem is, I didn't notice, really. I mean...actually, I did, but I didn't think it was a big deal. I didn't have any antidote on me, but I just...figured it would wear off, and I kept training with it like it didn't matter. Kept pushing it to work harder, even when it was hurting..."

He sounded bitter, and shook his head before continuing.

"So after another hour, it was really bad; Taillow could hardly fly anymore. That's when I realized the poison wasn't just going to wear off by itself. But I didn't have any antidote, and I was out in the middle of the woods...So I just left it in its Pokéball and waited 'til morning, thinking it would get over it."

He let this sink in, then continued.

"It wasn't any better the next day. I hadn't gotten a PokéNav yet, so I couldn't call for help, and there was nobody around, so I just...ran. I carried Taillow in my arms all the way to the edge of the woods, but it took all day, and by the time I finally made it out..." He took a deep breath. "It was dead. I knew it was dead before I even got into town, but I was just so scared, and it was still warm for a while, so I thought, maybe somehow...But by the time I got to the Center in Rustboro, it was already getting cold. And stiff..."

He trailed off. Ash said nothing.

"Nurse Joy was really kind about it, actually," said Brendan at last. "I guess it happens every year to a few kids, you know? A lot of them come all the way out to Dad's lab to get their starter, and some of them hardly know anything about Pokémon at all...So I guess she sees that more often than the other Joys. She even helped me bury it the next day. There was a Pokémon cemetery not too far from the Center."

He paused.

"The worst part is, it's my fault," said Brendan. "If I hadn't pushed it so hard, it never would have gotten poisoned. And on my way out of the woods, if I'd just left it in its Pokéball, the poison wouldn't have hurt it nearly as much. And even though I didn't have any antidote, I could have fed it some pecha berries; they grow in some parts of Petalburg Woods. But...I didn't know any of those things."

Another pause. It was half a minute before Ash spoke.

"What did you do?" he asked. "After...you buried it?"

"Called my dad and cried a lot," Brendan admitted. "I was just so..." He rubbed under his nose. "I really thought I knew what I was doing before. I thought I knew what it meant to be a trainer: winning battles, earning badges, getting stronger...But even knowing everything that I did, even with my dad being the region's top Pokémon professor, I couldn't help Taillow. The very first Pokémon I ever caught..."

Brendan took a deep breath, then rubbed a patch of hair sticking out from under his hat, gazing at the linoleum. Ash watched him curiously.

"Why are you telling me all of this, Brendan?"

"Well, Brock and May and I have been talking..." Brendan looked to Ash. "I just want you to know that you don't have to feel all of this by yourself. I've been through it too. Well...What happened to Taillow was my fault, completely my fault, and I know what happened to your Pikachu isn't your fault at all. But still...I thought maybe you'd want to know..."

"What do you mean, what happened to Pikachu?" Ash looked suddenly tense. "It's missing. I'm going to find it."

"How?" Brendan tugged at his hat again. "Ash, I don't want to sound like a jerk, but it's been...what, five days now, since the earthquake? I think you should maybe—"

"Maybe what?" Ash demanded. "Maybe start to give up on my best friend when it needs me the most?"

"Ash, you can't do anything about Pikachu," Brendan said. "You can't go looking for it, you don't even know where to start."

"I should have gone to Sootopolis City with Lance. He was there at Monsu Island, he's out looking for Groudon and Kyogre now. He'll know what to do to find Pikachu."

Brendan sighed and scratched at the brim of his hat, studying Ash's defiant expression with something between pity and admiration.

"Ash...do you really think your Pikachu's alive?"

Ash got up and walked away.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"You just don't get it, that's all," said Stanley, trying to be reassuring. Max cleaned his glasses with the bottom of his grimy shirt, looking between Stanley, Sierra, and Craig with deep skepticism once he donned them again.

"I'm pretty sure you're all just crazy."

"We're not crazy!" Sierra said. "Team Aqua were the crazy ones—_we _were doing what was best for everybody. And our leader's a genius."

"How is waking up a super-ancient Pokémon and making it mad best for everybody?"

"We weren't supposed to make it mad," said Stanley. "We had that thing, the Blue Orb...It was supposed to control Groudon..."

"Yeah, and it was a pain in the ass to get ahold of," said Sierra self-righteously, and sniffed. "And it wasn't just that, either, we tried loads of different stuff...There was always something to do on the team. We were working hard for everyone's sake."

"Yeah, sure," said Max. "Whatever..."

"For real!" Sierra insisted. "I mean, think about it. Like, if Groudon's power made more land, there'd be more places to live. Everyone'd be happy. And...If there was more land, I'd be able to get a big house of my own." This was evidently a thought she'd had quite often, because she relaxed a little, enjoying her own vision. "I'd build it on hardened lava..."

"Okay, seriously? Are you even listening to yourself?"

"Hey, shut up. What do you know? You're just a dumb little kid."

"_It's not dead!"_

The shout rang through the lobby, startling them; Max turned around.

"Oh, man," he groaned, watching Ash storm up from the back of the room, right through the crowd, Brendan trying to catch up. "He did it. I told him it wouldn't help..."

"Who did what, kid?" Sierra asked him, then added, "That's your friend, right? What's he so pissed about?"

Max sighed and shook his head, then headed towards Ash and Brendan; after trading curious looks, Craig, Sierra, and Stanley followed. Brock and May had noticed the commotion, too, and soon Ash's friends had him surrounded near the front door. Ash set his jaw and clenched his fists, gazing defiantly between Brendan, Brock, May, and Max.

"Pikachu's not dead, okay?" he snapped at Brendan. "Stop trying to tell me it is!"

"Ash...We don't want it to be true any more than you do," said Brock wearily. "But the fact is—"

"I told you! _Pikachu's not dead!"_

Other people were staring at them now from the other end of the lobby. Ash looked between his friends accusingly, as if they were herding him into a corner, and backed away a few paces.

"How can you guys keep telling me that? Pikachu's my best friend! How would you feel if it was one of your Pokémon that got lost out there?"

"Ash, we all understand how you feel," May pleaded.

"No, you don't! 'Cause if you did, you wouldn't be saying that Pikachu—"

His throat closed up, and he turned away.

"I'm gonna find it," he said, with his back to them all. "No matter what I have to do. No matter what it takes. I never should have left it in the first place."

"Find what, kid?"

Ash looked up. Craig, Sierra, and Stanley stood watching him with unsympathetic interest, as though rubbernecking at a car accident; he had inadvertently turned to face them when he whirled away from his friends.

"My friend, Pikachu," Ash told them, his voice hard. "It's still missing."

"Pikachu?"

It took Craig a second to remember what Ash was talking about, but when he did, he scoffed.

"Man, what are you, retarded? That thing's dead. Get over it already."

Brendan grabbed Ash's arm from behind; Ash wrested it from his grip.

"Take that back," he said to Craig.

"What for? It's the truth. You aren't gonna bring it back to life by wishing real hard."

Ash's Pokéball hit the floor at his feet and bounced, nearly cracking from the force of his throw; Corphish appeared, its claws clacking.

"Ash—" said Brock.

A succession of clicking noises, flashes of light: suddenly Pokémon stood facing each other in front of both groups, grunts and kids. Craig, Sierra, and Stanley were fronted now by a Houndoom, Mightyena, and Golbat, the former two snarling. May and Brendan had called out Combusken and Swampert; Max could only glare. Brock alone had done nothing, and looked alarmed—as did a number of people elsewhere in the Space Center, staring over at the commotion.

"Whoa, guys. Okay. I think we should all calm down," Brock said, moving off to the side to stand an equal distance between both groups. It made him look as if he were going to referee the fight that seemed about to break out. "Everyone just cool it for a minute and think about this..."

Swampert snarled at the grunts, cold air swirling between its teeth; on their side, Mightyena and Houndoom growled louder, their fangs bared, and when Houndoom snorted it shot out sparks that bounced across the floor.

"I don't think coming to blows is the best way to solve this, you guys," said Brock, trying to make his voice simultaneously authoritative and non-threatening. "We're in the middle of a building. There are a lot of people in here that could get hurt."

But his words went unheeded. Though the Pokémon did not trade attacks, the two parties had begun trading insults—loudly.

"What do you know? You're just a bunch of kids."

"You're horrible! All of you. It's your fault all those people are dead. If you hadn't woken up Groudon and Kyogre—"

"Shut up! That wasn't our fault!"

"Yeah, that was those—"

"How is that not your fault?"

"Things wouldn't have gotten so screwed up if you brats hadn't gotten in our way all the time!"

"Well, it's a good thing we did!"

"Yeah, you—you tried to mess up Mt. Chimney with a laser!"

"Sarah and Gordon worked really hard on that laser!"

"And what about the time you stole—"

"Shut up! You don't know anything, we were just trying—"

"Everybody _hold it!"_

Derek marched up. For once he looked passably intimidating, as he was wearing his full uniform, which granted him an imposing presence he would not otherwise have had. He jabbed a gloved finger into Stanley's shoulder, as he was closest, though Stanley was a good deal taller than him.

"What are you all doing now?" he demanded. "Put your Pokémon away and stop causing a scene. Do you want to get thrown out on the street and not have anywhere to sleep tonight?"

This argument seemed more persuasive than Derek himself could ever be, because Sierra and Stanley traded looks, and Stanley was the first to obey, recalling his Golbat to its Pokéball without further protest. Sierra and Craig did the same, and across from them, May and Brendan nodded to each other across Ash's shoulders.

"Combusken, return!"

"Come back, Kip. This isn't the place for a battle."

Ash was left clutching Corphish's Pokéball, still looking tense, Corphish itself bracing for a command. But May laid a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to look at her sharply before inhaling through his nose and wordlessly calling Corphish back. He clipped the Pokéball back onto his belt with the others, then adjusted his hat.

"I don't want to start trouble," he told Craig, in a voice of forced calm. "Just take back what you said about Pikachu."

"Fuck you, you little asswipe. Who cares about your stupid Pikachu?"

Ash threw himself at Craig. He might have made contact had Brock not intervened, lunging forward and pushing Craig and Ash as far apart as he could, clutching them by the front of their shirts. Ash struggled to hit any inch of Craig he could reach, but before he could land a blow, Derek rushed forward and caught the back of Craig's T-shirt, yanking him away and allowing Brock to concentrate on Ash. Brendan grabbed Ash's arm, and Brock shifted his grip to the other one; their combined strength was enough to keep him in place.

"_Take that back!" _Ash yelled at Craig. Craig sneered at him.

"The hell are you on about, Craig?" Derek demanded, still holding the back of his shirt roughly. "Stop trying to pick a fight!"

"We're not fighting yet."

"Well, don't even start," Derek said. "Are you crazy?"

"I'm fuckin' _goin' _crazy, stuck here like this!" was the reply. Derek let go of Craig's shirt. "Fuck you, Derek, don't act like you've got your shit together. We're all up a creek without a paddle, you know it. Boss and Tabitha ran off to Sootopolis and left us out to dry—"

"No, they didn't," said Derek. "Stop talking like that, it's insubordination. And don't pick on kids."

"They started it!" Sierra said indignantly, pointing over to Ash and his friends.

"We did not!" May argued.

Brock took a moment to consider the situation, then let go of Ash's arm; on his cue, Brendan did the same. Ash's fists were still clenched, but he did not seem about to pounce again (though Brendan looked wary, and ready to intervene if he did).

"I think we all need to just take some deep breaths and _calm_ _down,_" Brock said loudly, looking between Ash and Craig, still glaring daggers at each other. Behind Craig, Derek nodded his agreement vigorously. "Coming to blows over this situation isn't going to help anybody. Besides—I think all of you are missing something really important here."

"Oh yeah?" Sierra snapped. "Like what, kid?"

Brock surveyed his audience and ran a hand through his hair.

"We all want the same thing," he announced.

The grunts and kids exchanged looks.

"What are you talking about, Brock?" asked May.

"I mean what I said. It seems like all of us are tired of being stuck here and would rather find out what's going on in Sootopolis City somehow. Am I right?"

Again everyone exchanged looks, this time with surprise mingled with their anger and suspicion.

"Yeah, maybe," Craig admitted slowly. "But so what? You're just a bunch of kids."

"At least we're not total losers,"said Max.

Craig would have aimed a kick at Max had Swampert not growled at him. Instead he glowered at it and scooted a couple of feet away.

"Yeah, so what are you saying?" Sierra asked Brock. "You kids wanna go to Sootopolis too? What for?"

"Our friend is missing," said Brock, before Ash had a chance to speak. "Lance went to Sootopolis City with your leader, and he's the only contact we've got who might know something about where to start looking. We don't have a way to get ahold of Lance from here, so the only thing for it is to actually go to Sootopolis City and find him. Besides..." He looked between them all. "All of us know that Lance and your leaders went to Sootopolis to look for the Cave of Origin, which means they must have some clue about how to stop Kyogre and Groudon."

"I'm _not_ doin' that," said Craig at once. "Did you fucking even see those things on Monsu? I'm not getting anywhere near—"

"Nobody asked you to go save the world," said Brendan.

"Yeah, well, nobody asked for you to weigh in, you little—"

"Guys," said Brock loudly, interrupting, "you're missing the point."

"Which is what?"

"Which is," said Brock, "that instead of fighting each other, we should try to come up with a plan to get to Sootopolis City. That way, we'll all get what we want, and channel our energy into something constructive instead of sitting around being at each others' throats all day. Does that make sense?"

Craig and Ash continued to glare at each other, as did Sierra and May, and Stanley and Brendan. Derek looked equal parts frustrated and helpless.

"But we're supposed to stay here..." Seeing no support from anyone, he threw back his hood, frowning, and said, "Well...To be honest, I'd want to go find the boss and Commander Tabitha too. If there was a way."

"Then that settles it," said Brock. "Let's all agree to work together to get to Sootopolis City. No more fighting. Okay?"

Everyone looked at him, then at each other, Ash and Craig still glaring. But they all nodded back at Brock, and the tense mood eased. May leaned in to speak to Brock in a low voice.

"Brock...do you really think going to Sootopolis City is a good idea?"

They both glanced over at Ash.

"Not really," Brock admitted, "but I'm worried about what Ash will do if we don't at least _try _to do something. Besides...I don't think there's a way to get to the city in the first place. So hopefully, once Ash finally realizes that, he'll calm down a little bit, and maybe...Maybe he can start dealing with what happened to Pikachu."

None of the others heard this exchange. Craig, Sierra, and Stanley had already begun debating their options, while Ash and Brendan looked on, Ash looking interested yet wary.

"How the hell do we get there, though?" Craig wondered aloud. Stanley mused.

"We could go steal a ship..."

"Don't be a dumbass, Stanley," Sierra said. "The cops are the only ones using boats right now, they'll be all over them and the harbor. There's no way we could snag one and make it outta here without getting caught—and then it's jail for sure, no matter how busy Jenny is. No way we could talk our way out of jacking a boat at a time like this."

"Stealing is wrong," said Max.

"Shut up, short stack."

"Guys, if we could all just...not insult each other for five minutes," said Brock in exasperation, "I think we could work something out. Fighting won't solve anything, and it definitely won't get us where we want to go. This is going to take all of us to figure out a workable idea, so we need to put our heads together and start thinking." Again he looked between all of them. "Okay, then. Who's got a solution?"

No one answered at first. Then someone cleared their throat, and Brock turned around in surprise.

Brooke was standing there—though how long she had been watching the confrontation, it was impossible to say. Her gaze passed between all of them—the Magma grunts, the sullen Ash, his friends. She had an odd expression.

"You guys are all going to Sootopolis City?" she asked. The Magma grunts regarded her suspiciously.

"We want to, yeah," said Craig. "What's it to you?"

"I want to come along."

"Well, good luck," said Sierra sourly. "We don't have a way to get ourselves there." She seemed to realize something, and added, "What about you? You Aqua people know boats. There a way we could steal one without getting noticed?"

Brooke took a deep breath.

"Well, actually...I think I've got an idea."


	19. Chapter 19

They could not get an audience with Drake until the next morning. Wallace and Steven had gone down to talk to him at the waterfront as soon as Juan brought the news of his arrival, but Drake had taken it upon himself to transport relief supplies in his ship ever since the earthquake, and had so much work to do with supervising the cargo he'd brought in that he insisted any conversation of length and significance would have to wait until the next morning. This answer, when Wallace and Steven returned with it, annoyed Lance to no end.

"It's a yes or no question," he said over dinner (which Juan managed to convince him to sit down for). "Can we use his ship or not? If not I'll have to keep digging around here, but I haven't had any luck yet, and I'm not expecting to. Everyone and everything is helping with the evacuations. If I could just go talk to him..."

"He's not one to be pressed," Juan explained. "Drake is very...Well, I won't say _set in his ways, _but he likes things just so. He is a captain, and accustomed to being respected. If you were to descend upon him without invitation and demand the immediate use of his ship for your own purposes, I do not think you would be met with much welcome. Better to speak with him on his own terms. I'm sure he'll understand the necessity of your business, but not unless you can discuss it with him while he has time to sit and listen."

"_We_ don't have time for this," was Lance's muttered response. He scowled and speared a piece of broccoli onto his silver fork. "Kyogre hasn't changed course; it'll be here the day after tomorrow. And we don't know what Groudon's doing, but it's still pretty deep in the crust; if it pops up again somewhere, it'll cause another quake. I just hope it's not Mt. Chimney."

"Well, we can't do anything about any of that, ship or no," Juan pointed out. "And it's not as if you've decided where to go, correct? Even if you had a ship to take you, it wouldn't do you much good."

"The main thing is to get out of the city before the storm," said Lance. "Once that hits, it'll be impossible to leave the crater for who knows how long, and that'll waste even more time. Even if we don't know where to start looking first, if we could just get out on the water..."

"My dear Lance, you really must allow yourself a moment to relax. You realize this undertaking is too great to accomplish unaided—and fretting when there's simply nothing to be done does no one any service."

"I don't get paid to relax," Lance muttered, then impaled another piece of broccoli. "Well, Steven said Drake can see us in the morning, so I'm heading down to the waterfront first thing. You three," he pointed his broccoli at Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly, "get some good sleep, if you can, and be ready to go as early as possible. And pack your stuff, if you've got any. If there's any way we can swing it, I want us out of Sootopolis tomorrow."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

So it was that ten o'clock the next morning found them all—Lance, Steven, Juan, Wallace, Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly—aboard Drake's tall sailing ship, the _Silver Stantler, _which was so large that the main deck had a full-size Pokémon battlefield painted onto it, with room to spare. Huge wooden masts towered over them like trees, their sails hanging out to dry; crying Wingull darted to and fro between them, and the whole structure rocked and creaked steadily in the harbor like a huge creature.

Drake received them on the raised quarterdeck at the back of the ship so as to be out of the way of the busy crew. He sat at a small wooden table covered by a map of eastern Hoenn, wearing his tattered longcoat over his bare chest, arms crossed, an unlit pipe protruding from beneath his bristling mustache. On the deck behind him, his Salamence lay sunning itself, the end of its tail coiled around his chair leg; its eyes, slit open ever so slightly, glittered red. Once in a while it ruffled the leathery wings folded across its back.

Thus seated before the rest of them (who were all standing in a semicircle), Drake looked rather like an emperor receiving a foreign delegation, and greeted them all with a terseness that was nevertheless not impolite. Evidently he had not seen either Wallace or Steven in some time, and they had broken the ice by catching up and relating each of their experiences with the recent disaster. Now the conversation had touched on the subject of the Pokémon League.

"Mark my words: those money-grubbing bottom feeders at the League office won't pull the plug on the tournament unless Ever Grande goes completely underwater," Drake was saying. "They'll put Goodshow on the TV circuit to tell everyone how sad the League is about what's going on, but I'll be an Aipom's uncle before they cancel it altogether. 'Course, if there's another earthquake, that might do the trick—but I wouldn't put it past 'em to just move it out to the Plateau or somewhere, either."

"Goodshow's a nice guy," said Steven. "I like him."

"Me too," Drake agreed, "but he's naïve. Wants to think everything's still about the kids and fair play and people and Pokémon understanding each other like it was when he started the job. Doesn't see how many strings the suits are pulling these days. Back in my day," he leaned back in his chair, making it creak, "we didn't have all of this moneymaking crap. Sponsorship deals and broadcast rights and what have you. Tournament's just about turned into a circus."

"Oh, things aren't as bad as all that," Juan said genially. "I've yet to have a season where I wasn't impressed with many of the trainers who came through my Gym."

"Yeah, well, you're easy to impress."

"Now, Drake, be fair," said Wallace. "One can't simply dismiss a trainer out of hand before having a battle with them. I seem to recall that you thought very little of _me _when I came to challenge you and the rest of the Elite Four for the Championship..."

Drake made a rumbling noise and nodded to Wallace.

"I admit that," he said gruffly. "And you showed me what for. I'll be the first to say it's good to get your rear end handed to you once in a while...keeps your head the right size."

Salamence growled softly and swished its powerful tail, knocking the leg of the table, which rattled. It did not seem to bother Drake.

"Have you talked to any of the others at all?" asked Steven. "Sidney, any of them?"

"No, haven't heard from anybody recently. Had lunch with Glacia on Dewford a couple of months ago, but that's it. We stay busy. Though I have a feeling the folks in Ever Grande have been wanting a word with me. It's about time for them to give me my yearly nudge toward the door."

"Whatever do you mean?" asked Wallace. "Surely they wouldn't ask you to step down from your position?"

"Oh, they'd love to be rid of me," said Drake, a gleam in his eye. "Can't dismiss one of the Elite Four, unless you break League rules eight ways to Sunday, but they've been leaning on me for ten years, trying to tell me it's too much of a headache on their end for me to sail year-round and hold my post...Well, I haven't budged. The day a bunch of yahoos with college degrees tell the Elite Four how to set their own training schedules is the day the soul of the Pokémon League shrivels up and dies. They'd have the four of us all shooting commercials if I wasn't still here."

"I quite like doing commercials," said Wallace.

Drake snorted at him, but it was not malicious, and Wallace chuckled. Drake leaned back in his chair and appraised the group before him.

"So, then—let's get down to business. Where is it you all want to go so badly?"

As they had not yet brought the conversation around to this subject at all, everyone looked a little surprised. Drake pulled his pipe out of his mouth, gesturing to them with it.

"Don't you all look at me like that, I wasn't born yesterday," he said. "I've got a ship, and that's worth more now than it usually is, with all hell going on from Slateport to LaRousse. If you just wanted to drop in for some idle chit-chat, this isn't the time to do it—and you wouldn't have come as a crowd." He looked to Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly, who had stood a little off to the side, and not yet introduced themselves. "And who are all of you? Never seen you around before. You're not League people, are you?"

"No. My name is Shelly."

"And I am Maxie."

"Tabitha."

"Tabitha?" Drake regarded him. "That the name your parents gave you, son?"

"Yeah," said Tabitha stiffly. "Got a problem?"

"Not at all." Drake's mustache bristled. "Not every man would have the balls to go by a name like that. Good for you."

Tabitha looked like he did not know what to make of this compliment. Maxie cleared his throat and said, "I'm not certain if you realize...We are in command of an organization called Team Magma."

"Team Magma?"

Drake rumbled, studying them with a fresh eye, and scooted his chair back a little ways as if to get a better view. His Salamence blinked and raised its head.

"Well, well, well. That's a mighty big surprise."

"I take it you've heard of us?" said Maxie.

"That I have, and it's a whole lot of ugly, too." Drake studied them. "Captain Stern told me about you clowns. Stole some research material from him awhile back, right outta that nice little museum of his over in Slateport. Goons in red capes, he said." He gestured with the mouthpiece of his pipe towards Tabitha's hooded overshirt; Tabitha scowled.

"So what if we did?" said Tabitha.

"So what?" Drake raised an eyebrow. "Well, that's not a very nice thing to do, now is it? I'd almost say it makes you a bunch of no-good, troublemaking petty criminals."

"We're rather more than petty criminals," said Maxie. "Unfortunately."

"Hmph." Drake folded his arms across his chest. "And what do you mean by that?"

"Well, our ultimate objective, such as it was...We were seeking the power of the legendary Pokémon Groudon."

"Groudon."

"Are you aware of the legends surr—"

"Yeah. Go on."

Maxie blinked, then collected himself. Tabitha looked annoyed; Drake, nonchalant.

"Well," said Maxie, "our mission...We wanted to capture Groudon and control it."

Drake rumbled again.

"Catch yourself a legendary Pokémon? Hmm...Exactly how drunk were you three when you thought of this?"

"I'm not with them," said Shelly at once, before Tabitha could even complain about the insult. "I'm from Team Aqua. We wanted Kyogre, not Groudon."

"Team Aqua..."

"Ring a bell?"

"Oh, yes," said Drake. "I know about you Team Aqua hooligans too. Roughed up old man Briney down in Rustboro, wrecked his boat—and that's the nicest thing I've heard. Thieves and thugs, you sound like to me, except with a different set of shirts on than these guys." He pointed with his pipe between Shelly, and Maxie and Tabitha.

"We're completely different from Team Magma," said Shelly; there was a trace of haughtiness in her tone. "They wanted to use Groudon to control the power of land, but _we_ were after the power of the sea. We wanted to expand the ocean."

"Expand the ocean, huh?" Drake's mustache bristled. "Well, can't pretend the captain in me doesn't like the sound of that. But it's a bad idea all the same. Some things are just too big and too old to go poking in the eye." He growled pensively. "Groudon and Kyogre...Hmph. No wonder the weather's coming apart at the seams. What made you think you could control ancient Pokémon like that?"

"It's a long story," said Maxie. "But we were wrong. The both of us." He glanced to Shelly when he said this. "As it happens, both of our groups fell short of our goal. We found the super-ancient Pokémon, and woke them...and made them upset. That is the extent of our accomplishments, I'm afraid." Drake gave him a look of such contempt that he added, "You must understand, Team Magma—I did not found it as a criminal organization. Our goal was to use Groudon's power to increase the amount of liveable landmass, for the benefit of both humankind and Pokémon."

Drake considered this.

"I'm impressed," he said. "I've been listening to sailors' stories since I was knee-high to a Volbeat, and that's still the silliest damn thing I've ever heard. Increase the liveable landmass..."

"Among other things," said Maxie wearily. "Groudon is a super-ancient Pokémon whose abilities are beyond anything else in the world. Harnessing its power for the good of civilization..."

"_Civilization_ my rear end," Drake said. "If you had a lick of sense you'd have left anything that powerful well enough alone. Only reason you wouldn't is if you thought you were better than everybody else...thought you knew what was best for everybody."

"I did," said Maxie, and heaved a sigh so deep and genuine that Drake raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I'll hand one thing to you, you people have guts," he admitted, looking between Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly. "Not half a brain between you, it sounds like, but plenty of guts. Why aren't you three in jail?"

"They're working with me," said Lance, stepping forward to rejoin the conversation. "We're trying to figure out how to stop Groudon and Kyogre now that they're on the loose."

"Ah. How's that going for you?"

"As well as can be expected, under the circumstances." Lance tossed his cape over his shoulder. "That's why we came to talk to you, captain. We need a ride."

Drake leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest.

"Well, that's what I figured in the first place. Where to?"

"We're not sure," said Steven. "The Throne of Heaven, wherever that is. We've been studying some ancient ruins, and they all point to the Throne of Heaven as the location of something that can calm Kyogre and Groudon. Trouble is, we don't know where to start looking."

"Well, you'd better figure it out, hadn't you?" said Drake. "Can't give you a lift and then go around in circles. You have any idea what this place looks like? Or what it's near?"

"We have one clue," answered Lance. "We're not certain, but we think it might be a tall tower of some kind. Trouble is, who's to say the tower's still standing?"

"A tower, hm?"

"Maybe." Lance shrugged. "It's our best guess. We're trying to narrow the possible location down, but all we have to go on is the known locations of other ruin sites, and that's not that helpful, since there's no real towers at any of them. And besides—"

"Sky Pillar."

"What?"

Drake leaned over the table and rapped the mouthpiece of his pipe onto a spot on the map, out in the ocean.

"It's not on this chart," he said, "but there's an island right here sailors call Sky Pillar. One of those tiny little islets with coral around it, there's a thousand of 'em around."

"Why's it called Sky Pillar?" Steven asked.

Drake sat back and stuck his pipe into his mouth.

"Because it's got an old stone tower on it," he said around the pipe, "a quarter of a mile high. It's usually clouded over, but on a rare day you can see it for miles—handy for navigating, there's nothing else out that way. Nobody knows who built it, but you can't spit here in Hoenn without hitting somebody or the other's ancient ruins, so I don't know if anyone's ever even bothered to go out and study this place properly. Suppose not, if you all haven't heard of it." He looked to Steven. "Locals like to say people built the tower a long time ago to hold the sky up: Sky Pillar. Me, I'd reckon it was a lighthouse back in the day, except the island's so small, and the Pillar's so big...Well, who knows? But it sounds like just what you're all looking for, is my point."

Everyone digested this. Drake looked between Lance, Wallace, and Steven, studying their expressions; they, in turn, looked to each other.

"So it's an ancient tower," said Lance, "on a deserted island, with nothing else around it. Is that correct?"

"Yep."

"Have you ever been onto the island itself?"

"No. It's got too much coral around it, can't pull a boat in close. Besides, there's nothing out there except that tower—no reason to go looking."

"How long would it take us to get there?" Lance asked. "Assuming we wanted to go check it out."

Drake considered this question.

"Next good tide outta here's not 'til tonight," he said, "and I don't know if we could make that. Got a lot of cargo to finish loading up."

"And what if you didn't load any cargo?"

"No cargo?" Drake studied Lance. "Y'mean run a skeleton crew out there real quick and then come back for the Mossdeep load?"

"This is urgent," said Lance. "Kyogre's on the way here to Sootopolis; we won't be able to make it out of the crater once the storm hits."

"Oh, we could," said Drake, "but it wouldn't be easy, or pretty. The _Stantler's _weathered every storm she's ever run up against, and I intend to keep that record clean. But all the same, I'd rather steer clear of a storm that's got a mind of its own. Bad business." His mustache twitched. "But, if we head for Sky Pillar, we'd have to dodge the weather anyway, since it's on its way from Pacifidlog—no two ways about it." He drew an invisible line with his finger that predicted Kyogre's slow progress eastward; it cut between Sootopolis and where he had shown Sky Pillar to be. "If we cast off this evening, it would still take the night and a day, depending on how far out the storm stretches and whether we have to double back. And I was wanting to get this batch of supplies out to Mossdeep right away. Seems like a waste to go chasing after some ancient something or the other when there's people who need food and clothes."

"It would be worth it if we find something at Sky Pillar that can help end this," Lance pressed. "I admit that we're flying by the seat of our pants here, but every day that Groudon and Kyogre stay on the move puts more people and Pokémon at risk. Even if there's only a slim chance that Sky Pillar is really the place we need to be, it's still worth checking out right away as a lead. If we could leave with the tide tonight, so much the better."

"Hmm. Well, supposing we did go to Sky Pillar...Who all would be coming on this little expedition?"

"Not me," said Steven at once; this answer surprised everyone. He exchanged looks with Wallace, then said, "I'm going to hold down the fort here—Wallace can go with you all."

"I would remain, as well," said Juan, bowing. Lance nodded.

"The rest of us would go."

"Even them?"

Drake jerked his pipe over at Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly, standing off to the side.

"Why wouldn't we go?" Tabitha demanded.

"Why? Because you're a bunch of half-brained crooks with eyes bigger than your stomachs, that's why."

Tabitha and Shelly's expressions both darkened. Lance frowned at Drake.

"I know it seems—suspicious—but they're helping us out right now. I'd like to take them with me to help me study any information we find. They know more about Kyogre and Groudon than most people."

"I understand that," said Drake, "but that still isn't reason enough for me to let these loonies sully up the _Stantler_. Far as I'm concerned, they're responsible for an awful lot of blood and tears, and I don't fancy having a trio of useless criminals on board my ship. She's a good boat, she deserves better than that."

"Useless?"

Shelly tossed her long red hair over her shoulder. Drake met her gaze unblinkingly.

"That's right," he said. "Useless, as far as I can tell. If you were a quarter as good at cleaning up messes as you are at making them, none of us would be in this situation, would we?"

The mood soured. Drake, quite satisfied, stuck his pipe back between his teeth. Maxie looked uncomfortable, and Tabitha set his jaw; Shelly, however, seemed composed. Only her flashing eyes gave a warning of what was beneath the surface.

"Captain," she said coolly, "I respect your authority aboard your vessel, but I suggest you reconsider that decision."

Drake removed his pipe. Behind him, his Salamence swished its scaly tail across the deck; it made a noise like sandpaper.

"You threatening me, ma'am?"

"Not at all." Shelly stepped forward and placed her hands on either side of the map table, gazing straight across it at Drake. "I'm simply asking you to consider my position."

"And why in the world should I do that?"

"Because," said Shelly coolly, "in the past week, I've lost everything that meant anything to me. Do you understand that? Every damned thing. My team has fallen apart, I watched our leader go insane and die, half of the others are probably dead too—and the entire goal that I've spent years of my life working for has turned into a disaster that's killed thousands of people and Pokémon. And if, by some miracle,we do find a way to stop Kyogre and Groudon, I'm going to grow old in jail for setting them loose in the first place." She took her hands off the table, but her gaze remained locked with Drake's. "You don't want me to contaminate your precious ship? Fine. But I'm going to Sky Pillar even if I have to swim there. This is my fight, and I'm going to stay in it until it's over—until there's not one shred of hope left of stopping Kyogre and Groudon." Her tone sharpened. "Now look me in the face, captain, and tell me that I don't deserve to do that."

Nobody spoke. The wind, the cries of Wingull, and the clatter of the crew down on the main deck prevented silence, and neither Shelly nor Drake moved. Drake's Salamence growled softly. Then—slowly, without breaking eye contact with Shelly—Drake removed his pipe from his mouth.

"I see your point," he said curtly.

This broke the spell that seemed to have frozen the others where they stood, and everyone shifted. Shelly stepped aside, victorious; Lance took her place directly in front of Drake.

"Thank you," he said to Drake. "So...When can we leave for Sky Pillar?"

"This evening." Drake tilted his cap back over his head and adjusted his chair, the better to view the creased map spread in front of him. _"Stantler's _not a clipper, can't just pop in and out of here whenever I want—can't catch a decent wind down in this crater half the time. We've got to wait for the tide. And my crew's already started loading the shipment for Mossdeep; I'll have to get them to take it all out again if we want to be light enough to dance around the weather." He laid his pipe down on the table. "What are you all going to do in the meantime?"

"I'm going to go talk to headquarters," said Lance at once. "Let them know what I'm up to. What about the rest of you?"

"Cave," said Steven at once; Wallace shook his head at him, then said, "I'll accompany you, but then I'd like to make some preparations for our journey. At what time would you like us back here at the harbor, Drake?"

"Sundown at the latest. I'm not missing the best push of the tide on account of anybody not showing up."

He scowled at Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly from beneath the brim of his hat, then scooted his chair back and stood, his coat rustling. Behind him, Salamence got to its feet, too, stretching its long neck.

"So, we're going to Sky Pillar. All right, then. _Fitzwilliam!"_

"Captain?" called a young man from the middle of the ship.

"Change of plans!" Drake barked, and swept past them to the lower deck, his coat swirling behind him, heading down to talk to his first mate. Salamence lumbered after him, dragging its tail; Steven edged out of its way as it passed.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"I'm very sorry that I haven't spent much time at home lately," said Juan, as Sebastian took away their empty plates. "I feel like an ungracious host. But there's simply been so much else going on about town. And now you're all leaving this evening and we've hardly exchanged a word—it's inexcusable."

He addressed himself to Maxie and Shelly. Lance had not returned to the house with them, and Tabitha had already disappeared to feed Mightyena; this left the three of them sitting at the tidy kitchen table set with silverware, a tablecloth having been draped over it since breakfast. Sebastian set down a pot of tea, then poured Juan a cup.

"It's perfectly all right," said Maxie. "I don't think anyone would be asinine enough to criticize your manners at a time like this. No sugar for me, thank you."

"Perhaps so," said Juan, "but it's a poor set of manners that's used only at one's own convenience. I would not abandon good breeding and common courtesy for something so trifling as the worst natural disaster in Hoenn's recorded history."

Shelly stood up. Maxie and Juan both glanced to her, and she said, "Thanks for lunch. I'm going to go check the news."

"Ah, but surely nothing of great magnitude has happened since this morning?" Juan prompted. "I would relish the continued pleasure of your company."

"I'm sure you would," Shelly said dryly, and gave a nod to them both before turning and making for the living room, her curtain of red hair flashing like a warning signal as she disappeared.

"Very strong-willed, isn't she?" Juan remarked, in a strangely pleased tone. Maxie stirred his tea, then took a sip.

"I wouldn't know," he said. "I've only just met her, really. We were enemies, until...well, until all of this happened."

"Ah, that's right...I keep forgetting you three are not a unit, so to speak." Juan regarded him over the rim of his teacup. "Team Magma and Team Aqua...I would ask more about it all, but I have a feeling it's too long of a story to be told in one sitting. And perhaps you are not in the mood to tell it."

Maxie sighed. A week ago he would have been delighted at meeting someone who wanted to hear every detail of his dream, and how hard he had worked to achieve it. Now the prospect of trying to explain it all daunted him.

"You're quite right," he admitted. "You'll have to forgive me for leaving the full story aside for now."

"A shame," said Juan. "It must be an interesting tale. You don't strike me as the criminal type."

"How do I strike you, then?"

"As an artist."

Maxie laughed.

"Well, you're off the mark, I'm afraid. I've never had any artistic talent whatever. I enjoy art, certainly, and literature and good music and so on, but I've never had the ability to create it myself. Nor the desire, I will admit."

"To be a leader of men is to be an artist, in my view," said Juan, crossing one leg over the other. "To inspire, to direct, to create harmony and a working body out of individual people using your own vision...That cannot but be an art."

"I'm not sure I agree."

"But is that not what the artist does?" Juan asked. "The beauty of a work of art, be it a sculpture or a poem or a concerto...It lies not in its constituent components, but in the way that the artist, guided by inner vision, arranges them. To create something magnificent out of mere paint or words or notes on a scale, guided only by that inner vision, is impressive. To do it with people is even more so."

"I see the analogy," Maxie admitted, "but I don't think it holds." When he paused, the television in the living room helpfully provided some numbers to support his argument. "One can hardly call this atrocity a failed work of art."

"Well, certainly not." Juan nodded. "But I think there is something to be said for having a vision."

He sat back in his chair, still studying Maxie over the rim of his teacup.

"I have devoted my life to understanding beauty," he said, "and yet I cannot define what it is. I simply know it when I see it. And to me it seems there must be some small kernel of beauty in uniting people toward a common goal—quite apart from whatever that goal happens to be."

"I wouldn't call it _beauty," _Maxie mused. "Nobility, perhaps."

"One and the same. We call that which is beautiful 'noble' when it is a part of the human spirit; context changes the terminology, not the concept."

"I see you're something of a philosopher."

"The study of beauty necessitates it. It is a difficult field."

Another sip of tea. Maxie, to fill the silence, said, "I'll take your word for it. But truth be told, I'm surprised you've been interested in speaking with me at all. I would have thought, given your love of Water Pokémon, your sympathies would lie with Team Aqua."

"My sympathies?" Juan chuckled. "Aha, and here's the false dichotomy at last! My friend, my sympathies lie neither with your organization, nor with the lady Shelly's. And even if I were to feel some measure of understanding towards one of you, that would in no way preclude me feeling an equal amount towards your enemies. You speak from your own vantage point, wherein your two groups are yin and yang, day and night, oil and water; from my perspective, you are all the same. I have no reason to choose between you."

"Hmph." Maxie rubbed his chin. "Well, naturally, I hadn't considered...though I understand, of course, it's simply I've had no reason to think of it that way. But I had meant that perhaps you would find Team Magma's objective reprehensible."

"I wouldn't use such a strong word," said Juan, "but you're right in assuming I see no reason to alter the landscape of Hoenn—particularly not in order to tip the balance against the ocean." He raised his teacup slightly, as if in a wry salute. "But that aside, I find you all quite engaging. Had someone asked me to guess, from all the reports and rumors about Team Magma and Team Aqua, what were the characters of those who led them, I do not think I would have conjured a picture that was in any way descriptive of you and your companions. It is most interesting."

Maxie suddenly had the sense that Juan was studying him the way he would study a work of art, trying to decide whether he liked it or not. It was an odd inspection to be subjected to. It had been a long time since Maxie had had an extended conversation with anyone who had not already formed an opinion about who he was and what his life's work meant.

"And, personally," Juan continued, "it seems to me that this whole situation is rather bigger than you and your organizations. I suppose that by all rights I should be righteously indignant at having you all under my roof, but I can't bring myself to it. Though perhaps that serves to comment more upon my own character than it does upon yours."

The sound of footsteps made Juan look to the door behind Maxie; Tabitha soon appeared, followed by Mightyena, and Tabitha paused on his way through the kitchen to turn to them. His gaze darted between Maxie and Juan, as though he found the sight of them conversing freely somehow suspicious.

"Do you need anything, Maxie?" he asked.

"No, Tabitha, I'm all right. I'll join you momentarily."

Tabitha nodded, then gave Juan a skeptical look before disappearing into the living room, his red cape flapping, Mightyena at his heels. Juan watched him go.

"He's very protective of you," Juan remarked, sounding amused. "How did you two meet?"

"Hm?" Maxie's brow furrowed. "Well...I didn't _meet _him, per se—he joined the team of his own volition, several years ago. We didn't know one another before then."

"Quite the stroke of good fortune."

"I suppose," said Maxie, feeling strangely like he was missing something. "He's very dedicated."

"I had noticed." Juan chuckled, then asked, "So I take it you've been together for some time?"

At last Maxie realized what was amiss with the conversation. He blinked, frowning.

"I'm afraid you're mistaken. Tabitha is my subordinate, and nothing more."

"Ah! I am sorry," said Juan at once. "Forgive me, I normally have a good intuition for these things. But no one's judgement is flawless."

"Clearly," said Maxie, a bit sourly.

"Well, more's the pity. He's terribly handsome."

"Do you think so?"

"Don't you?"

They regarded each other. Maxie frowned harder; Juan, however, did not seem bothered by the _faux pas _of his incorrect assumption_. _In fact he still looked amused.

"I'll concede that," said Maxie, "but it was hardly a point of consideration in promoting him. And you'll forgive me for saying I had presumed you were only interested in women."

"I appreciate beauty wherever I find it." Juan sipped his tea. "That surprises you?"

"Not entirely," Maxie admitted. "But nevertheless...Well. I see no reason whatever to discuss this."

"Quite so, quite so," Juan said, nodding. "Forgive my curiosity."

Maxie scowled at Juan over his tea. Juan was no longer smiling, but that gently amused expression remained in his eyes; Maxie felt strangely bothered. An honest mistake would have been one thing, but he had the impression that Juan had been fishing for information, trying to determine whether Tabitha was currently available, and whether he would even be interested if he was. The idea made Maxie indignant. But (he realized, taking a sip of tea) there was no reason it should. Tabitha was his subordinate, certainly, but it wasn't as if he could tell him what to do with himself beyond his professional responsibilities. In fact Maxie had never even wondered about that before—what Tabitha did with himself, whether he had anyone significant in his life, and to what sort of person he was attracted. He suddenly felt it was something he ought to know.

"Well, I apologize again for my discourtesy," Juan said. "Nothing is more unbecoming of a gentleman. I meant no offense."

"None taken," Maxie answered, in a tone that said he'd come close. "Though you'll have to forgive me for taking my leave. I ought to prepare for the journey this evening."

He had almost nothing to do in this regard, and knew Juan knew it; still, Juan took the hint and said, "I understand completely. I've several matters to attend to, as well."

Juan finished his tea and left the cup in its saucer; Sebastian had disappeared, and so the cup and saucer remained on the table as Juan stood and bowed lightly. Maxie remained seated.

"If you wish to borrow anything material for your expedition," Juan said, "simply alert Sebastian. I've things to spare, should you want an extra set of clothes. And really...I do apologize for my forwardness. It was ill-mannered of me. But the current situation simply put me in mind of it."

"How do you mean?"

"Well—the destruction, you know. The chaos, general uncertainty. It makes one more sensitive to romantic issues."

"Does it?" Maxie asked. "I'd hardly think a disaster like this would be a fitting time to address personal concerns."

"And I," said Juan, "would argue the opposite. A man can afford to postpone his own happiness only when he knows what tomorrow will bring. When the future is dark, what sense is there in letting an opportunity simply pass one by?"

With this thought, Juan swept away, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the hall. Maxie was left sitting at the table with the rest of the pot of tea, contemplating this philosophy, and wondering (not without some consternation) whether he had just been flirted with.


	20. Chapter 20

"C'mon, buddy. You're a mess."

Mightyena allowed itself to wag its tail once in excitement, then jumped onto the bed, stretching out expectantly. Tabitha pulled a wad of hair out of the brush before sitting down on the bed next to his Pokémon and scratching it behind the ears, then putting the brush through Mightyena's long hackles. It growled happily, and Tabitha glanced at their reflections in the full-length mirror across the room before assessing the dismal situation before him. Mightyena's fur was so long and coarse that if not brushed daily, it quickly became a tangled mess, and he hadn't tackled the job in nearly a week.

"I should have done this sooner," he admitted aloud, now scratching under Mightyena's chin. "This is probably gonna hurt some. Sorry."

Mightyena snorted.

"Hey, don't give me that. I've been busy."

A light growl.

"Yeah, I know." Tabitha smiled as he kept scratching. "My fault. Now hold still."

Mightyena thumped its tail against the edge of the bed in acceptance of the apology, then closed its eyes as Tabitha started to brush. He had done this countless times, and so there was an easy rhythm to the way he combed through Mightyena's bristly fur, working determinedly at the tangles until they came undone; once in a while he paused to brush the excess fur off of the edge of the bed, scattering it over the cream-colored rug and polished floor. Tabitha did not really have to pay conscious attention to what he was doing, but unfortunately this gave his mind free reign to wander, and as the minutes passed it began to do so with impunity.

Though Tabitha was not one to dwell on problems if there was no action he could take to solve them, he hadn't had much of a choice recently, and it took only a minute to convince himself that there was no point trying to predict how their upcoming mission would fare. They knew too little, and were starting too late; if Kyogre and Groudon crossed paths again, they would clash with a violence that could tear Hoenn in half. No small part of him wanted to lie to himself about it, to pretend that somehow, someway, things might go back to normal and Groudon would be theirs...but no, of course not, clinging to the thought was preposterous at best and childish at worst. Only habit made him wonder it, that was all.

Tabitha frowned as he scratched Mightyena's neck, making its happy growls louder. He had spent years looking forward to a future that would now never be, and so lately he had found himself looking back instead—though there wasn't much to look back on, or at least, not much he considered worth looking at. Life before the team had been...Well, it had been, and that was that. The very first years on his own were not good days, hardly better than the cacophony of home, and Tabitha did not like to remember them: working and fighting and stealing in equal measure to carve himself a place, never quite sure what the next month would bring him. He'd cleared out of Slateport when the gang (a petty little affair, but proud of itself) began to demand more and give back less, and he and Poochyena had wandered their way down the coast and then out to the islands, looking for something intangible that always eluded the pair of them—happiness, perhaps, or stability. Tabitha wasn't sure.

That was the thing, really. He had never been sure of what he wanted back then, and his various stabs at figuring it out rarely ended in success. Something had always happened to disrupt whatever routine he cobbled together in each new place: the work dried up, or the debts piled too high, and twice whoever he'd come to trust most had told him one evening (Kel in annoyance, Alex with pity) that he was starting to take things too seriously. In that respect it was far easier, Tabitha had decided, and far safer, to never give himself the opportunity to make that mistake—to just go to a bar on the weekends and be young, handsome, mysterious Harlan, who would fuck in the backseat without a single drink in him. Not very dignified, perhaps, but it was better than nothing, and if all he wanted was warmth...

Well.

Mightyena stretched itself out fully across the width of the bed, blinking; Tabitha rubbed its belly with his free hand, and it bared its fangs in a huge yawn. What did any of it matter now? That whole mess of a life was long gone, pushed out of his mind by sheer force of will; he'd escaped all that the day he'd joined Team Magma and pledged himself to its grand cause. Though the honest truth was that Tabitha had never been deeply passionate about the loftier ideals of the team—those grandiose visions of benevolence that Maxie sometimes went off about when he was in a good mood. What the team was to Tabitha (or what it had been, he thought grimly, still brushing), was structure and a purpose: the opportunity to belong somewhere, and to excel, and to be rewarded with power for excelling. Moreover, his identity as an Magma had evolved into a protective coating that conveniently hid the rest of his humanity; with that outer layer now in the process of being painfully scraped off, Tabitha had been left to deal with everything else he was as a person—which was, mostly, a knotted mass of hopelessly unprofessional things called feelings. The uniform that had spared him so many frustrating questions (_who are you? what do you want?) _no longer meant much of anything, and he was not pleased at being reduced to only what was beneath it.

When Tabitha inadvertently stopped brushing Mightyena, it whined its displeasure and raised its head. He apologized with a long scratch behind the ears and kept going, pulling a clump of black and gray hairs out of the brush as Mightyena yawned again, its fangs glistening in the light from the bedside table lamp.

What he wanted now...Well, it wasn't as if he didn't know; he just wasn't used to having to actually admit it to himself every morning, after a nightmare roused him from sleep. As an admin he always strove to be as competent and professional as possible, doing whatever he was told to the best of his ability, and if he spared a thought for his own wants or needs it was only on the condition that they didn't interfere with his duties. Though of course, he hadn't always lived up to his own standard of perfection. A fleeting memory of that jester-like smirk, and the mocking laugh that always followed it, was enough to make Tabitha grit his teeth and pull the brush through Mightyena's fur a little too hard; it snarled.

"Sorry, buddy," he said at once, and when Mightyena growled again he scratched it under the chin. It flicked its ears and studied him with half-lidded eyes, trying to figure out what was the matter, then sat up and shoved its muzzle into his armpit, burying itself against him and making him laugh. He set the brush down and ran his fingers through its fur, chuckling.

"I'm fine," he told it, when it pulled away again. "I'm just thinking, that's all."

Mightyena swished its tail, then picked up the brush in its jaws and poked him in the stomach with it, growling. Tabitha smiled.

"All right, all right. Hold still."

When Mightyena laid back down, Tabitha resumed brushing it, taking care to work the teeth of the brush deep into the thick layer of dark fur on its back. The bed creaked when he shifted position to better reach around and brush Mightyena's other side, scattering hair over the sheets.

Everything was ruined now, though Tabitha did not like to put it in those words. Courtney and those who had gone with her had been right, leaving at once would have been the most sensible and self-interested thing to do—but Tabitha could no more easily have walked away then than he could have sawed off one of his own limbs. He remembered the night before last, the scent of roses in a dark garden, and it sent a stab of bitterness through him; never in his life had he felt so utterly, stupidly, infuriatingly useless. What could he do? Be here, and be reliable, and say, every time he was asked, that they would find a solution, whether he genuinely thought so or not. That was it.

It wasn't quite _falling apart, _Tabitha mused. It was not that Maxie was a different person now, but that he'd cracked on the surface; the smooth confidence that had impressed Tabitha from day one had been shattered. No longer a man who knew the shape of the world and his place in it, nor who believed, with serene hubris, that he could mold the world to suit himself; his strength of personality had turned inward, becoming self-loathing that poisoned him instead of arrogance that gave him the motivation to do whatever he desired. It was not a side of him that Tabitha had ever imagined he'd see, and every one of Maxie's self-damning little sighs of late felt to Tabitha like a slap in the face. They meant that he'd failed, somehow.

It took Mightyena growling loudly at him to realize he'd stopped brushing again. He resumed with a sigh that made it sit up on its haunches and look him in the eye, sensing his frustration and disapproving of it. Tabitha sighed, smiled, and scratched Mightyena under the chin; it nudged his chest with its snout hard enough to knock him a few inches sideways.

"I told you, I'm fine." He abandoned the brush to run his fingers through its fur. "I've just got a lot to worry about. You know how it's been."

Mightyena accepted this explanation with obvious skepticism, nudging him again, and then laid back down, resting its head across his thigh. When it growled at him he rapped it lightly on the snout with his knuckles, and it sneezed.

Yes, he had a lot to worry about, it wasn't as if that was a lie—but really, he hadn't had much energy to spare for the full scale of what had happened. It was too much to comprehend at once, the weight of water and the choking taste of smoke and ash, destruction piled so high in so many places that to try and think about it all at the same time was impossible. Tabitha stifled another sigh and scratched Mightyena mechanically. The thing that worried him most was downstairs, finishing his lunch.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"Thanks," said Shelly, and meant it, despite her tone. "I'll give it back when I'm done."

Sebastian bowed and closed the door behind him, leaving her alone with the laundry hamper full of clothes he'd brought. Juan had amassed an impressive collection of trophies from his visitors over the years, and Shelly grimaced as she set the large hamper onto the bed and began sifting through the offerings, looking for anything that wasn't an evening dress and seemed like it might fit her. As she dug through the hamper, Shelly tossed everything immediately useless over her shoulder; a small pile of garments formed on the bed a few feet behind her.

It all seemed to be happening somewhere else, she thought, pulling off her shirt to try on another she found. Monsu Island was five days ago, and these last two nights spent at Juan's felt like sleeping in a bubble, protected from the spasms of shock and horror that still rocked Hoenn in the aftermath of the disaster. She wondered what the odds were that Sky Pillar contained the so-called 'emerald' (whatever it was), and how many other places they would sleeplessly search if it proved a false lead. How much of Hoenn would be left intact by the time (it could be years, but she forced herself not to think it) that they found what they sought? If it even existed at all.

The shirt fit, more or less; Shelly pulled it off and laid it on the bed, then grabbed another one. There were no promises, no guarantees...well, there never had been, but in seeking Kyogre there had at least never been a deadline. The constant threat of Team Magma kept them running even when all of their leads had burned out, but racing against the enemy was not the same as racing against disaster. The journey to Sky Pillar would take the night and a day, the captain had said. A lot could happen in a night and a day.

Shelly's expression darkened as she remembered Drake's words; they lit a flashpoint of anger inside her. Infuriating, that a stranger should tell her she was worthless, that her whole identity was a sad joke. But it had angered her so much because the idea had struck a nerve.

More than once over the past few days, Shelly had gotten the feeling that somehow, in some abstract way, she was crossing a line by continuing to act. It was as if her whole world, her life—being Tactical Commander of Team Aqua—had been just a bit part in some larger series of events, culminating in the awakening of Kyogre and Groudon into the modern world. Shelly had only been important insofar as she helped to bring the present situation to fruition, and now that it was set in motion, she was supposed to disappear, her small part in the script concluded. It was of no consequence whether that disappearance was fleeing the region, laying low inland, or going to prison, just so long as she exited the stage quietly, acknowledging that she did not matter anymore in the grand scheme of things, and barely ever had.

With a knot in her stomach, Shelly sifted through a layer of pants; they all looked too big. Sometimes it seemed to her as if her whole damn life had been just one long struggle to try and matter, and this was just the latest and grandest failure.

When Shelly tried on another blouse and found it too tight, she pulled it off and tossed it away, then sat with her head bowed, her long red hair falling across the side of her face like a curtain, her bare shoulders a little chill. She felt tired, even though she'd done nothing all day but walk to the harbor and watch television. Shelly suspected that it was the latter that had drained her more, somehow; Hoenn seemed to have finally figured out that another disaster was inevitable, if not imminent, and the slow erratic terror of Kyogre's storm was always being discussed by panels of experts. It had taken a great effort for Shelly to pull herself away from the TV after lunch, even though she'd been absorbing the news every chance she could since their arrival in Sootopolis. At this point all she wanted was one sentence, just some scrap of throwaway commentary about bodies found offshore from Lilycove that would tell her Matt's fate. Not knowing what had happened to the base was becoming just as unpleasant as knowing what had happened to Archie.

Shelly set her jaw and slid off of the bed at the thought, digging furiously through the hamper.

She ran hot and cold about Archie, she found. Sometimes she hated him so much that if he had suddenly appeared before her, alive and well, she would have killed him herself; sometimes she missed him so much that the memory of his laugh made her eyes burn. Very often she felt both ways at once, and such was the case now. As she wadded up a skirt and tossed it over her shoulder she found herself remembering the last time she and Archie had ever made love. It had been the night before she'd left to infiltrate Team Magma, and for fun she'd worn the grunt uniform they'd procured for her disguise.

She paused to clench another skirt tightly in one fist, trying to wrench all the feeling out of the memory and look at it objectively, like a detective coolly regarding a crime scene. She wanted foreshadowing, some evidence that Archie had only ever intended to use Kyogre for himself, but try as she might she could not recall anything of the sort. He had been passionate, exhilarated, confident that they were only days away from the success they'd dreamed of for so long; there had been nothing in his behavior that could have warned her he was going to toss her aside like garbage. He'd had no idea that he was going to die soon, either. He had been happy.

And she had been happy, too. That stung the most. Try as she might, she could not pretend that Archie had only betrayed Tactical Commander Shelly, and not Shelly the human being.

He'd always been selfish, of course—Shelly threw a shirt aside—but so what? So was she. So was the whole team, collectively. They had to be, to do what they were doing and want what they wanted. But Archie's charisma and vision had always been enough to bind them together, coupled with the promise of power beyond anything that they could achieve by trying to scrabble up the ladder of decent society. There were impossible odds and near-impossible tasks, dozens of false starts and dead ends, yet the reward was all the more enticing for that. And as much as Shelly would have loved to pack every memory of Archie away into a dark corner and never touch it again, she knew that was impossible. Not only was that corner already rather full, but Archie had been one of those people you couldn't forget after meeting him even once; he'd had a sort of magnetism that she'd tried very hard to rationalize to herself before they became involved.

Certainly, he'd been handsome—and vain about it—but that alone wasn't what had attracted her to him. There'd been something about him that she'd been subtly jealous of, though she never would have admitted it to herself or to him while he was alive. Archie, for all his many faults, had had a contagious zeal that stemmed from an optimism Shelly herself had long since lost. He'd been a dreamer by nature, always wanting more and thinking bigger, upbeat and reckless and never terribly concerned with the nitty-gritty details of exactly how these grand ideas he came up with were supposed to become reality; figuring that out was her job, after all, and Matt's. Though his wrath was the most frightening thing in the world, it was not what he had used to lead them, and when Shelly pictured him, the thing that came to her first was his devilish grin: the way he'd barrelled carelessly through life, and teased her at every turn for not doing the same.

_Why don't you stay tonight, Shelly?_

Because that was supposed to have protected her, somehow. If she didn't stay, and didn't get flirty in public, and didn't say any of those nauseating words, then that would keep it meaningless, like it should have been. Fierce and fast and fun and that was all they were together, just that, not anything more...except as Shelly stared at the hardwood floor she could not forget how blue his eyes had been at night, when the waves washed over them both in the creaking bunk, and the tide inside of her heaved suddenly high, and for a moment beyond counting they became one body, lost in one another and lost with one another in the deep rolling swells of the sea.

Bastard.

Shelly found a pair of pants that looked promising and tried them on; they were loose, but there was a belt in the bottom of the hamper, and it served. She pulled on another blouse and tugged at the edges of the sleeves, which were a touch too long. Resting her elbow on her knee, she bowed her head and pressed her knuckles to her brow.

Thinking in circles again, pointlessly. She hated this inaction, wallowing in stale memories; she wanted to get out on the water and throw herself into whatever the future held next. This mythical emerald was the slimmest of hopes, but it was the only shot at redeeming herself that she had, and for all the sensible worry about Kyogre and Groudon roaming for years, Shelly had been burdened with a growing sense of dread that the end, in whatever shape, was coming soon. The Pokémon had woken up, were stretching themselves, gathering their strength after such a long hibernation; when they met again their battle could rage forever, unabated. In the ancient past, they had made Hoenn; in the near future, they would unmake it.

_I'm sending you, Shelly. You're the best thing I've got._

Shelly raised her head and pressed the heel of her hand against her eyes to keep them from watering, then forced down a sigh and reached for the next piece of clothing in the hamper. Archie was dead. He should at least have the courtesy now to leave her the hell alone.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

For better or worse, nothing much happened for the next few hours. Lance stopped by the house several times on his way to and fro across the city, saying he and Wallace would meet the others at the harbor when the time came, and so when the afternoon began to age, Maxie, Tabitha, and Shelly, accompanied by Juan, walked back down to the bottom of the crater without him. Juan insisted on seeing them all off out of politeness, but his presence turned out to be fortunate, as at some point during the day the police had set up a blockade to stop the anxious crowd from interfering with ship traffic, and it was only Juan's social standing that got them past this unexpected obstacle. When they had been ushered through to the quay, they found Wallace already there, waiting.

"What have you done with poor Steven?" Juan asked him.

"He's still down in the Cave of Origin," Wallace replied, "and I'm quite sure that place is the only reason he isn't coming along with us. But I feel better for it, to tell you the truth. I don't like the thought of dashing away from Sootopolis when it might need quite literal defending, but with Steven here, I'll be more at ease. And with you here, of course," he added, bowing courteously to Juan. Juan chuckled.

"Well! I won't promise that we could stave off a legendary Pokémon, but I assure you, if the occasion arises, Steven and I will do our best. I suppose it goes without saying that we'll be staying in touch, and that we'll let you know if something unexpected occurs."

"Yes, Steven and I have arranged it already."

Maxie, Shelly, and Tabitha did not join this conversation; instead the three of them headed up the gangplank onto the _Silver Stantler, _Shelly in the lead. Shelly headed for the quarterdeck at the back of the ship, and Maxie, to the forecastle deck in front; Tabitha, after some thought, released Mightyena from its Pokéball on the main deck.

"You ready to go look for some answers?" he asked it.

Mightyena licked the salty air, looking around, taking in all of the new sights and smells of the old-style sailing ship. It sniffed the scrubbed deck, then watched a crewmen and a Machoke carry a large crate down the gangplank.

"You can look around," Tabitha told it, "but don't get into any trouble."

Mightyena nodded at him, then stuck its nose in the air, offended by the suggestion that it might ever be so undisciplined. It resumed watching the crewmen, its ears flicking forward, sniffing the air once as they hauled crates down to the waterfront; whatever was inside them seemed to smell interesting. Tabitha spent a minute finding his footing (the ship rocked gently even when moored), then paced the main deck, looking around.

The ship had been a strange sight that morning, towering over the fishing dinghies and ferry boats that crowded the Sootopolis harbor; with her tall masts square-rigged with white canvas, the _Silver Stantler _had looked among them like a queen in all her royal finery standing in line at the supermarket. The oddness of it was not alleviated by studying her up close. She was like a thing out of another time and place, blown into this port by some storm even more unnatural than the one surrounding Kyogre. Still, her regality could not be denied, not even by Tabitha, who was by no means a nautical man. In fact as he paced the main deck, he found himself approving of the obvious discipline that went into manning her. He did not have to be a sailor to appreciate the way her polished decks shone, or the way her rigging had been drawn true and taught across the whole length of her body.

Maxie, having retreated to the forecastle, clutched at the bulwark for a few minutes to steady himself before letting go, though sometimes he reached for it when the ship shifted; it was plain from the way he gazed about with a frown that he no more trusted this vessel with their safety than he did a matchbox. Team Magma's base had been huge, steel, and safe, an old submarine carrier they'd bought under the table for less than the sum of its parts. The _Silver Stantler, _though large for a sailing ship, was still all wood and rope and sheer determination.

Over in the harbor, the pier bustled with people, but there were fewer ordinary citizens than there had been that morning, and the busyness had a subdued, intense tone; Kyogre's storm was closer now than it had been even a few hours ago. Wallace, in his tailored turquoise suit and white cowl, stuck out brightly further down the dock; Juan had gone, but Wallace was talking to someone else, a man in a police uniform who seemed to be in charge of the proceedings. So engrossed was Maxie in watching them from a distance, wondering about their conversation, that he did not notice Tabitha step up beside him, at least not until he glanced over.

"Do you need anything?" Tabitha asked him.

Maxie shook his head and turned to study the harbor once more, ignoring the Wingull that squawked their names as they flapped between the crosstrees above. Though it was not quite evening, the city had darkened considerably, since the sun had already lowered almost beyond the rim of the crater, and the orange sky burned as if from some enormous fire. The city, stretching largely across the western face of the crater, already lay half in shadow.

For quite a while Maxie and Tabitha stood there together on the side of the ship, silent and solemn, thinking whatever thoughts seemed least futile in the face of their latest mission. Tabitha looked grim, determined, but Maxie had a morose air about him; he kept stifling little sighs as he watched people and Pokémon hurry across the docks, his eyes darting back and forth. At last he spoke.

"You don't have to stay, you know."

Tabitha, who had been lost in thought, perked up at once.

"Sir?"

Maxie glanced over at him, keeping his hands on the bulwark.

"Tabitha, I've been thinking...You're very dedicated, but sometimes I wonder...That is, I don't want you to feel as if you owe me any further service."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I don't want to have dragged you into all of this against your will." A vague wave of one hand compared Tabitha to the people scurrying along the harbor. "For all intents and purposes, Team Magma is no longer a functioning organization, and I would hate for you to get caught up in a situation that you could have avoided, solely on my account."

"Maxie, I want to be here," Tabitha said at once. "I want to do whatever I can to help."

"Yes, but...Logically..."

Maxie looked out over the city, his expression drawn, and he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand before leaning forward against the bulwark, his shoulders slumping. Again that melancholy look came over him; it was obvious he had been thinking thoughts like this all afternoon.

"What's wrong, sir?" Tabitha asked him, after a few seconds. Maxie raised his head, grimacing.

"What _isn't_ wrong?" he said bitterly, then sighed. "I don't know, Tabitha. I've just had so much to think about lately, and it's all so disheartening. I simply never wondered...There were so many things that I never once took into account..."

A Wingull swooped past and landed on the bulwark a few feet away, preening itself. Maxie rubbed his temple with one hand, frowning, as if he'd had so much rattling around in his mind for so long that it was becoming painful.

"Tabitha?"

"Sir?"

"Tabitha—are you happy?"

It was such a strange question that Tabitha blinked, puzzled; Maxie grimaced, as if this reaction proved something.

"You see?" he said. "That's another of the thousand things I never thought about—whether you or Courtney or anyone else were happy with your lot, so to speak. I've always been selfish; I was so caught up in my own ideas, in what I hoped to achieve, and I took so much for granted...And now here we are, off to who knows where for who knows how long, and I don't even know whether we'll manage to accomplish a damned thing. But the point is that I hate the thought of you putting yourself at risk for no reason, on top of everything else."

"You don't have to worry about me, Maxie. I can take care of myself."

"Oh, I know, Tabitha." Another sigh—shorter, more gloomy. "Sometimes I wish I could borrow your head for a while. Or your heart. Whatever it is that's made you so resilient."

"It's just practice." Tabitha shrugged. "Things happen sometimes. Get knocked down, hit the floor, get back up again."

"That's the part I always have trouble with," Maxie mused. "Getting up again. Someone usually has to help me."

"What do you think I came here for?"

Maxie laughed sharply, startling the nearby Wingull, which took off with a frightened squawk.

"So—that's it, then? You came here against orders to keep an eye on me?"

An apologetic shrug that seemed to mean _more or less. _Maxie smiled wryly.

"Well, I'll admit that's very thoughtful of you, Tabitha. Ill-advised, but thoughtful."

The Wingull that had flapped away returned, perching on a rope and regarding the pair of them indignantly before shouting an emphatic _"Gull!" _and taking off again. Tabitha leaned forward and rested against the bulwark, folding his arms over the top of it, frowning as he watched a Hariyama shuffle along the dock, carrying a crate its own size over its head. With his horned hood thrown back, the slanting orange light from over the rim of the crater highlighted the cut of his jaw. Maxie studied his profile for a long moment, then looked away. Juan was right, of course.

"There's really no getting rid of you, is there?" Maxie asked. "Even though I'm a complete fai—"

"Stop saying that," said Tabitha automatically. "Maxie—look, you've always been a good leader. I'm proud to be a part of the team."

"Even still?"

"Yes." Tabitha nodded. "And I wouldn't say that if I didn't mean it. So either you're not a failure, or we're failures together. You can't have it all to yourself."

Maxie wanted to laugh, but could not quite find it within him to do so. Still, he smiled, and even through his bitterness he marveled that he was still capable of being amused at anything said by anyone. Tabitha had a way of making him laugh, he'd found, now that giving and receiving orders was no longer the bulk of their conversations. It was an odd thing to notice, at a time like this.

"You're very stalwart, Tabitha."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Not at all, no. If anything, it's reassuring."

Maxie rubbed the back of his neck, then straightened from where he had been leaning against the bulwark, taking in all of Sootopolis with a sweeping gaze that started at the top of the crater rim and followed the lines of jagged streets until it reached the harbor again, packed and noisy, yet for all the activity somehow subdued. There was no panic, that much could be said. Fear—practically palpable—and uncertainty and a kind of fatalistic resolution, but no panic. Maybe the first storm had beaten it out of them.

"You know, Tabitha..."

"Sir?"

It had been an idle thought, one of many in his mind, and he hadn't planned on actually saying it aloud. Still, he might as well finish the thing, if he'd started it. Maxie looked over; Tabitha was regarding him curiously.

"I wish we had talked more, before now," he admitted.

"Er. About what?"

"In general. I was always so wrapped up in my own concerns that I never really cared to..." But Maxie registered the hint of unease that had been in Tabitha's question, and in response to it, he asked, "Why? Is there something you'd rather I didn't know?"

He said it jokingly, but a flash of unmistakeable alarm passed over Tabitha's face before he could suppress it, and in better circumstances Maxie would have laughed. Tabitha's reaction did not worry him. If it had been a professional blunder, or anything that would have set the team back, Tabitha would have readily admitted it when it happened and faced the consequences; whatever transgression had come to his mind had to be something else, some detail of his personal life that he would have preferred his superior not to know about. Maybe he had a favorite among the grunts. Maxie knew many of the young women on the team admired Tabitha from afar.

"It's nothing important," said Tabitha, looking away; Maxie could not help but smile at how uncharacteristically uncomfortable he seemed. "Sir."

"Well, I'll take your word for it." When Tabitha looked surprised, he explained, "I trust you, Tabitha."

Tabitha relaxed. A Wingull skimmed the surface of the water just to starboard, then flapped up and perched on the bulwark next to Tabitha's hand, a bit of food it had scavenged from the docks dangling from its beak. It blinked at Maxie and Tabitha, folding and unfolding its long wings, then threw its head back and swallowed whatever it had found before taking off again, joining some of its fellows that were circling the top of the mizzenmast.

"Tabitha?"

"Sir?"

"If you weren't here...Where would you be?"

"What do you mean?"

"Supposing you had left with Courtney."

"I wouldn't do that."

"Yes, but hypothetically...What would you like to be doing with yourself, apart from Team Magma?"

Tabitha did not answer right away. He stood looking out at the city and frowned as he straightened up, putting his hands in his pockets, the light wind ruffling the edges of his uniform as he considered this weighty question.

"I don't really have anywhere else to go," he admitted. "Outside of the team, I mean. But that doesn't mean I'm here because I'm scared of that. I'm not." He ran a hand through his dark hair, a little purplish in color. "I did okay for myself before I joined. Things were hard sometimes, but I always found a way, and I could do it again if I had to. Wouldn't like it, but I could do it. But honestly, there's nowhere I'd rather be right now than here."

"And why is that?"

"Because I know what's important to me."

The activity on shore continued apace. Wallace had long since disappeared, and now there was not a single familiar face on which to focus attention; all of the people in view, for all their physical differences, melted together into a mass of worried looks and hurried movement, their innumerable voices a hum of anxiety that rose and fell by degrees. A ship further down the dock looked ready to depart; the police were ushering the last handful of people up to it, one of them on a stretcher.

"I find that hard to believe," Maxie said.

"That I know what's important?"

"That you want to be here. I know I don't, for one." Maxie looked balefully out across the whole of the city, now beginning to be speckled with lights from those few buildings allowed to use them. "It seems like the end is approaching, somehow. Do you have that feeling? Groudon and Kyogre..."

"That doesn't matter," Tabitha said at once. "I'm sticking with this no matter what they do."

"I wouldn't blame you if you didn't."

"But I want to help you."

"Oh, don't be so obsequious, Tabitha. I'm not worth it."

Tabitha caught his wrist. It was done gently, yet the gesture surprised Maxie enough that he started. Tabitha's expression was at once earnest and yet hesitant; it was clear he felt he'd broken some unwritten but very serious rule by arguing with the man who'd shaped his life for so long.

"Maxie—don't say that."

For the briefest instant as he looked into Tabitha's face, Maxie had his usual impression of a mirror, polished and shallow: showing him what he wanted to see, telling him what he wanted to hear. Then the mirror changed to glass, and the man on the other side squeezed his wrist and nodded stiffly before letting go, looking back out over the city, as if embarrassed. The sight arrested Maxie. Not a commander still marching behind his superior even though the battle was lost, nor a fool still tottering after a charlatan even though the trick had been exposed, but a man choosing to walk down a dark road beside a friend, because he knew it led to danger.

"_Hey, you two!"_

Tabitha and Maxie both turned, startled. One of Drake's crewmen was waving at them from the center of the main deck, down below.

"Hey—whoever's Mightyena this is, come and get it! The captain's Shelgon doesn't like it too much!"

Tabitha hurried away at once, and Maxie saw Mightyena and a Shelgon squaring off on the lower deck, a yard apart; Mightyena's hackles had raised, and its fangs were bared as it growled at the dark depths of Shelgon's shell, from which glowed a pair of menacing yellow eyes. When Tabitha reached Mightyena, he said something sharply, then pulled it away by the scruff of the neck; his exact words of criticism were lost beneath the noise of the crew. Mightyena's fur laid flat again when Tabitha knelt and rubbed its head, still speaking sternly but also scratching his Pokémon behind the ears. From across the deck, Maxie watched him with a strange expression, as though he had never really seen him before.


	21. Chapter 21

"What do you think is up there, little guy?"

"Piii-ka..."

Pikachu craned its short neck back as far as it could. Together, it and Archie gazed up at the cloud that wreathed the tall tower, shielding its top half from view; the looming pillar before them blocked out the sun. Archie scratched his neck.

"Door's sealed over," he said unnecessarily; they both could see this. "Guess we'll have to bust our way in."

"Pi."

Archie looked down at Pikachu. "You think you can blast us in?"

Pikachu shrugged.

"Worth a try."

Archie backed a few yards away, and so did Pikachu. It crouched on all fours, sizing up the six-foot doorway, then rushed headlong and, with a cry, leaped into the air. Its tail glowed. There was an earsplitting _crack _as the Iron Tail attack cleaved against the stone, and Pikachu fell back, its nose and ears twitching.

"Nice shot, little guy," said Archie, but the gash in the doorway was only a start. Archie walked up to it and pushed his shoulder against the damaged rock, but it did not budge. He tried again, with more force; nothing happened.

"Pi-_ka?"_

"No dice. Give it another one."

Pikachu nodded, and Archie moved out of the way. The second Iron Tail smashed directly where the first had, deepening the gash in the stone and sending pebble-sized bits of mortar flying like grapeshot. When the dust cleared, Archie examined the damage. In one spot about four feet above the ground, he could see a dark patch deep in the gash; when he knelt to inspect it, he realized it was a hole, not quite large enough to put his fist through, had he even been able to reach down that far. If there had been a wooden door at one point, it had long since rotted away. They had broken through to the tower.

"Pika?"

"We've hit the inside," Archie pronounced, standing up again. "You think you can crack it open more?"

Pikachu looked a little tired, but it nodded all the same, and sized up the damage it had already dealt to the stone before powering up another Iron Tail. This one took longer, however, and after Pikachu had smashed the stone again it fell back on all fours, panting. A piece of the wall the size of Pikachu itself crumbled away and fell with a dull _thud _to the ground.

"You all right there, little guy?"

Pikachu wiped its brow and nodded.

"Don't usually do Iron Tails in a row, huh?" Archie took another long look at the hole Pikachu had made in the stone. "How about try an electric attack? Aim right here—try to blast some of the rock away."

Pikachu's cheeks sparked as it charged up a Thunderbolt. Archie made sure to stand well clear, and shielded his eyes from the blinding flash when Pikachu shot a bolt of concentrated electric energy straight at the tower. There was a hissing noise, and then a loud _crack. _The Thunderbolt ended. Archie looked up.

Black scorch marks now streaked the cracked face of the stone wall, but it had not fallen apart. Archie walked up to it, frowning, and pushed with his shoulder against the most unstable-looking portion of the rock face. The stone creaked. He pushed harder.

At last, after a mighty effort, the chunk of scorched rock gave way. Archie stumbled hastily backwards to avoid the hundred-pound slab of rock falling onto his feet, but something was amiss: the sound of it falling did not end when it hit the earth. A great crashing, crunching noise continued from within the tower, and chips of stone flaked off of the charred surface outside as the weakened mortar coughed out dust. Pikachu and Archie stood back helplessly. When the noise died away at last, they looked at each other, then approached.

The wall looked unchanged, but when Archie searched for the hole that lead to the inside of the tower, he discovered it had vanished. In fact, from what he could see, it seemed that something right inside the tower had collapsed, perhaps an inner wall; when he hit the stone with the heel of his hand and listened, he could no longer detect a faint hint of hollowness. At his feet, Pikachu's nose twitched.

"Well, shit."

Pikachu looked up at him, cocking its head to the side. "Pi?"

"It's collapsed." Archie spat—half in anger, half to clear dust from his mouth—and wiped his dirty sleeve across his face, grimacing at the rubble. "I think we broke something in there, little guy. Looks like it caved in."

"Chu? Pi-_ka._"

"Yeah. We might bring the whole thing down on top of us if we keep at it."

He took a step back and sized up the face of the tower, still frowning deeply. He had an eerie feeling that all of the ghosts he had created were locked away inside the tower, waiting for him, if he could only find a way to get inside. Pikachu scratched behind one of its ears.

"Pi? Pipi_ka_chu."

"Maybe. You wanna give it another go?"

The small Pokémon shrugged. On impulse, Archie tried pushing at the stone again, but all he succeeded in doing was sending debris sliding down the surface of the rock, pebbles and bits of blackened mortar bouncing off of the ground beside him. Scowling, he picked up a charred piece of stone, took a few steps backward, and then hurled it at the tower. It ricocheted off and smacked him in the ankle. He swore loudly.

Pikachu said something, but Archie just shook his head and scowled, rubbing the back of his neck. The scorched and shattered rubble now clogging the base of the tower looked like more of an obstacle to entering it than the original wall of stone had been. He gave the stone one last shove (it did nothing) and then spat again at the base of the tower, this time purely out of frustration.

"Fuck this," Archie said, glaring at the mass of rock. "I'm gonna go take a nap."

He stomped away, muttering curses under his breath. Pikachu watched him go, then turned back to gaze at the tower, craning its neck back and blinking. The sun was moving westward behind Pikachu, and its shadow spread several times its actual size across the pile of rubble, like the outline of a much bigger Pokémon. Pikachu frowned, then put a little distance between itself and the tower, sizing it up. Its tail glowed again.

The Iron Tail cracked a piece of the stone with a sound like a gunshot, but the result was the same as before: chunks of rock slid and crumbled around one another to block the entrance to the tower even more thoroughly. Pikachu spent a minute examining the rock, looking for any place where it might wriggle deeper into the rubble, but there was no such spot, and eventually it gave the tower another long look before sighing and shaking its head. It turned and scampered away towards the berry trees.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Archie had thrown himself onto the hard rock of the ledge and laid there on his side, staring sideways at the way the wind rustled the grass that grew along the rim of the cliffs above him, but he could not force himself to sleep. He was not tired, not really; it was simply that there was no particular point to being awake.

After a while, he gave up and climbed down from the ledge, stuffing his hands in his pockets and heading away up the beach, leaving footprints in the wet sand. It took him over an hour to walk the whole circumference of the shore, since he kept stopping to stare out over the water, gazing at the line of the horizon where light blue met dark blue, looking for anything there that might be more than a distant cloud. Each time he saw nothing, he turned away and continued his journey, but his expression was not frightened, or angry, or even disappointed. He simply looked weary.

Bits and pieces of curious jetsam littered the beach, as always. The reef that ringed the island over which the tide had to pass ensured that only the very smallest shells washed up whole, and so there was some distraction in picking up various fragmented objects, trying to deduce what each had once been: the shell or scale or tooth of which creature, a piece of coral or smoothed driftwood or other token from shores and waters distant. Archie did not keep any of these things. He studied them, examining the most interesting in the palm of his hand, and then set them back onto the sand, letting the bubbling waves do as they wished with the offerings they had brought him. There had been others in days previous; there would be more in days to come.

It was a hot day, and as Archie walked he sometimes paused to splash seawater over his face and neck, the cool droplets trickling down his face and beard, down the back of his neck. After he had done this enough times, his shirt grew damp, and he pulled it off, wringing it out (it hardly helped) and wadding it up in one hand, carrying it the rest of the way around the island. The sun warmed the metal chain around his neck, making it uncomfortable on his skin; when this happened he splashed water on it, but it always evaporated quickly.

Eventually he reached his ledge again. He climbed up to it, tossing his crumpled shirt aside; it just missed the edge of the rock and fell ten feet to the ground below. It was not worth retrieving. Archie sat facing the water, his legs in front of him, arms folded over his slightly bent knees; once in a while he leaned forward to rest his chin on his forearms. He watched the sun move imperceptibly westward, the dancing flash of its light upon the smooth surface of the sea, and the migration of clouds that skittered across the faraway sky.

For a long time he sat like that, silent and still, sometimes closing his eyes. When he did, the bright world disappeared, and there was nothing in his senses but the tang and the scent and the sigh and the song of the ocean, and the steady breaking of her waves became like the beating of the heart of the world. The sound soothed him a little. It always had.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

_"Why don't you stay tonight, Shelly?"_

_"What do you mean?"_

_"I mean spend the whole night. You always run off."_

_"I told you, it's nothing personal."_

_"Yeah, but what's the problem? I know I snore—"_

_"I just want it this way, Archie."_

_"How come?"_

_"Does it matter?"_

_"Well...Eh, I guess not. I just figured, with you heading off tomorrow..."_

_"What does that have to do with anything?"_

_"Something could happen out there with the Magmas."_

_"You think I won't be able to pull it off?"_

_"No, I just—hell, things go wrong sometimes, you never know."_

_"I don't see why that means I should stay. I'll sleep better in my own bed."_

_"I know it doesn't matter, I just...Ah, come on, Shelly, what's it gonna hurt? Just this once."_

_"Not tonight, Archie."_

_"C'mon, Shelly, you don't have to be so uptight all the time. In a few days we'll finally be ruling the roost. Don't tell me you're not excited."_

_"I will be once we've won."_

_"Why not now, though?"_

_"Because I can't be. I just..."_

_Small excuses, none of them words: a rustle, a sigh, a kiss._

_"Let's talk about this later, Archie. All right? After I get back."_

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Archie thought he awoke at sunset. He sat up on his ledge to find the sun caressing the sea, and watched it idly, his thoughts wandering, resting his chin on his knees. He did not realize he was still dreaming until movement caught his attention out of the corner of his eye, and he looked down and to the right, towards the beach below.

It was her—predictably. He dreamed of little else these days, when he was lucky enough to be granted dreams instead of nightmares. Archie sighed, watching the thing that looked painfully like Shelly walk steadily up the beach. When she was out of sight around the edge of the cliff, he sighed again, but then frowned; the tracks she had left in the damp sand were being worn away by the waves instead of fading of their own accord. He pondered this for a moment, then got to his feet.

Dream or hallucination or the actual spirit of the departed...it didn't matter which. This was his only chance.

Archie clambered down from the ledge and stumbled across the sand to the waterline, then followed the tracks. A sudden fear gripped him—what if she had already disappeared by the time he caught up to her?—and so he sped up, hurrying to round the bend around which she had gone.

He halted suddenly. She had stopped walking and was standing twenty feet away with her back to him, gazing further up the darkening beach, perhaps trying to decide whether she had walked the earth far enough and could now return to whatever otherworldly place she had come from. The wind off the sea teased her long red hair, made even redder by the rays of the setting sun.

Archie wondered whether he should call out to her; his voice often didn't work in dreams, and he was not yet certain he wasn't still dreaming. But then she started walking again, and he cleared his throat.

"Shelly?"

His rough voice rang clear over the gentle waves. The apparition froze, then turned around; Archie collected himself and closed the distance between them, splashing through the shallows. She waited. When he reached her, he stopped, and forced himself not to extend a hand and touch her; he knew, somehow, that she would vanish if he did.

Up close she was pale, her red eyes wide, her face tight with silent horror. Archie supposed that was the look she had worn at the moment she had died. He took a deep breath.

"Shelly...I'm sorry I killed you."

Shelly punched him in the face.

Archie's back hit the wet sand, the breath knocked from his body by the fall. He lay sprawled in the surf like a beached fish, stunned, struggling for air, and a wave washed around him as he gaped up at Shelly. She was nursing her hand, looking no less flabbergasted than he. Apparently she had not expected her fist to connect with solid flesh. Her eyes widened as she watched him finally pull himself back to his feet, staggering a little before righting himself, spitting out a mouthful of seawater and gasping to force air back into his lungs.

"You're alive," was all Shelly could manage. "Oh my...You're alive..."

Archie gingerly touched his jaw, wincing.

"Of course _I'm_ alive, you're the one who..." But then his mind seemed to catch up with him, and he fell silent, gawking at her.

"Have you...been out here this whole time?" Shelly asked weakly.

Archie wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, still staring at Shelly as though afraid she would evaporate.

"Shelly..."

He didn't seem to know what else to say, and for a few moments, they sized each other up in awed silence. The waves lapped around their ankles.

"Shelly, are you real?" Archie asked at last.

"Of course I'm real, Archie."

"But, how...How did you survive? Kyogre..."

"How did _I _survive?"

Archie shook his head as if to clear it, then rubbed the back of his head, a little sore from his fall. Tentatively, he stepped forward, so that they were face-to-face again.

"Shelly..."

"Archie, I..." Her voice grew strained. "I really, _really _want to hit you again."

"Go ahead, I don't care. It doesn't—OW! _Fuck!"_

Archie bent double, gasping. Shelly shook out her sore hand, then clenched her fists again, and Archie straightened up. He looked almost frightened.

"I cannot _believe _you," Shelly managed.

"What—Shelly, what's wrong?"

"What's _wrong?"_

She drew herself up, staring at the bewildered Archie as though he were a grunt she'd caught sneaking into the storeroom.

"You have no idea?"

"Not...er..."

"You honestly," Shelly repeated—slowly, coldly, "have no idea,Archie, why I'm upset right now?"

Archie did not answer right away. The waves beat rhythmically against the damp sand at their feet as the sun sank beside them.

"Er...Is it because I tried to kill everybody?"

Shelly grit her teeth.

"You—you stupid—you complete _bastard, _Archie!"

The epithet was punctuated by a kick that would have hit Archie's shin had he not dodged it. Damp sand sprayed from beneath Shelly's boot, spattering into the shallows two yards away.

"Shelly, what—"

_"Shut up!" _she snarled, and it was so vehement, so unlike anything that Archie had ever heard from her before, that he obeyed. Shelly drew herself up, visibly quivering, her long red hair flashing in the sunset when she tossed her head. Archie tried again.

"Shelly—how did you get here? What happened?"

The silence he received as an answer felt like the tension that preceded a storm. Shelly drew a deep breath.

"I can't believe you, Archie," she managed at last. "You abandoned Team Aqua as soon as we had Kyogre and tried to fucking _murder_ all of us, and then you just_—_disappeared_, _and left me stranded in the middle of nowhere, trying to get everybody off that island in case the volcano blew again—"

"Shelly, that—"

"—and then everything went to hell, completely to hell, and I've been groping around in the dark, looking for answers. And _you—_you were gone,Archie, I swear I thought you had drowned,and the last thing you'd ever said to me was that you didn't care if all the rest of us died."

"Shelly, it's not like that!"

"How do I know, Archie?" Shelly's hands had clenched into such tight fists that she nearly drew blood from her palms. "How do I know everything we worked for wasn't a lie? How do I know that this isn't what you wanted all along?"

"Damn it, Shelly, you think I wanted this?" He waved a hand at the cliffs of the island beside them. "You think I wanted this to happen?"

"You wanted Kyogre for yourself! And Team Aqua—were we just tools to you, Archie? Was that the only reason you needed us at all?"

"No!" Archie looked thunderstruck. "Shelly, how can you think that after everything we've done?"

"Because _you tried to kill us!"_

Archie was not expecting another kick, and so this one hit him just above his left foot; he yowled and fell to one knee in the sand. Shelly glared down at him as he spluttered and cursed.

"You betrayed us, Archie." Her voice started to shake. "You threw the whole team away the moment we got you what you wanted. And now I'm the one who has to pick up the pieces and fix the mess we made, because I'm not a coward." She turned. "I thought you weren't either, once."

"Shelly!"

She had already started walking. Archie struggled to his feet, half-covered in sand, and stumbled a few paces forward, but Shelly heard him and broke into a jog. When Archie tried to follow her, he tripped and sprawled headlong into the sand; by the time he looked up, she was too far to catch up to easily.

_"Shelly! _Wait!_..._SHELLY!"

For a fraction of a second, she halted—then sped away again. Archie spat out sand and pulled himself onto his knees, then cursed furiously and got to his feet.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Shelly had to fight not to flat-out run. A very strong part of her wanted to put as much distance as possible between herself and—no, not the ghost. Her hand still hurt, and he'd smelled terrible, and certainly had _looked_ very much alive: bedraggled, shirtless, stubbled, tanner than usual and with rips in the knees of his pants. He was alive. Archie was alive, and had been alive this entire time...

She slowed to a walk, kicking sand over her shoes. The initial rush of adrenaline was passing, and Shelly forced herself, with great difficulty, to rationalize. A voice in the back of her mind told her that logically, she would have to bring him back to the ship right away, but just now that was the last voice she wanted to hear. She did not know what she wanted most: to see him, to not see him, to hurt him again.

Trying to decide this, she did not pay attention to her surroundings, and so halted when something made noise above her head. She looked up and to the left.

The cliffs that ringed the beach jutted out close to the water here, and something small and yellow was gazing at her from a ledge fifteen feet up. Shelly stared at it in the twilight, feeling she had seen it before.

"Pi_ka_chu!"

It clicked. Shelly's surprise doubled, and the Pokémon turned and fled, reappearing a few moments later from around the base of the cliffs. It darted up to her, looking excited.

"You're that Pikachu from Monsu Island," she said slowly, when it halted at her feet.

"Pi!"

"I guess you've been out here this whole time, too?"

The Pikachu nodded, then to Shelly's surprise, tugged on the leg of her pants, pointing away towards the ledge it had just left. Shelly looked up, then down again, her gaze hard.

"I don't want to see Archie," she said flatly. Pikachu shook its head.

_"Chu."_

"It's something else?"

Pikachu nodded again, more vigorously, then sprang away, leaping back up the rocks. Halfway up, it stopped and looked over its shoulder at her, flicking its ears. Shelly knew she was supposed to follow, and after a moment's hesitation, curiosity prompted her. When she put her foot on the first stepping-stone of the cliff face, Pikachu sprang away, out of sight.

It was a quick climb up to the ledge, made only a little difficult by the dying light, which cast shadows that made some handholds look deeper than they really were. When Shelly reached the ledge, she swung herself up, realizing when she stood that it was smaller than it seemed from below. There was nothing here except smooth rock, a few tufts of grass, and Pikachu, scratching sand out of its fur. The setting sun directly offshore shone red, staining the dark sea. The first stars had already begun to show.

"What did you want to show me?" Shelly asked Pikachu. "The sunset?"

Pikachu darted forward, skirting around her; Shelly turned and took a few steps backward, and when she did she saw that there was something else on the ledge, something she had not seen just to her right when she'd first reached the top. A small slab of stone was leaning against the cliff face, quite obviously set there on purpose, and Pikachu tapped it with its tail, then scampered out of the way. There was something etched on it. Frowning, Shelly crouched to read the inscription, carved deeply into the rock with long strokes.

REST IN  
PEACE  
SHELLY  
I'M SORRY

She stared, but the words did not vanish, or change. The setting sun threw its last handfuls of light over her shoulder, making flecks in the stone glitter. Beneath the words was a row of numbers, which Shelly recognized as her own date of birth, and the date of the disaster at Monsu Island, not quite a week ago. Shelly reached out and touched the stone, tracing with one finger the letters of her name, as though they might in fact be a trick of the dying light. A rustling noise came from behind her, and she turned, expecting to see Pikachu.

It was Archie. He had climbed up from the other side of the ledge, and had donned his shirt again, which was quite as worse for wear as his pants. He made as if to step forward, then stopped himself, and Shelly stiffened.

"What do you want?" she heard herself ask.

Archie's deep, rough voice was quiet.

"Shelly...I don't care if you hate me. I don't care if you punch me in the guts so hard I puke. I just wanna look at you. Please."

Never once had she heard him use that word. Archie knelt, resting his fists on the torn knees of his pants, and said no more. His expression was strange, muted; he looked as if he really did want nothing more than to just sit there and watch her be alive, to watch the sinking sun shine golden on her long red hair.

"Get up."

Shelly heard her voice quaver when she said it; she herself did not know which emotion made it so. There were so many inside of her, fighting over which would get to choose her next words, that Shelly took a moment, as Archie stood and approached her, to try and collect herself. Archie reached out a hand towards her face, then hesitated.

"Shelly, can I..."

She met his gaze, then nodded. He brushed her bangs out of her eyes, looking awestruck.

"You're real..."

He cupped the side of her face with a hand, brushing a thumb along her cheek, but this was a mistake; with a small but firm motion, she jerked her head away, leaving him holding nothing. He let his hand fall.

"Why, Archie?"

Archie did not answer, except to sigh and stare away over the sea, streaked with crimson by the glow of the vanishing sun.

"I don't know," he said quietly, without looking at her. "I just..."

Instead of finishing the thought, he sighed again, then ran a hand through his filthy hair and turned back to her.

"Shelly, I...Look, I'm not very good at—feelings—but I..." There was just enough light left to show her his miserable expression. "I've really missed you."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"I don't care."

"You don't care?"

"I don't care if you believe me or not. I don't care if you never want to see me again. I just—fuck. You're alive, Shelly. You're still alive. That's the only thing that matters."

He said this with a kind of despair, and Shelly realized he was resigning himself to the idea that, having reappeared and said her piece, she would now climb down from the ledge and leave him here on the island forever, to grow old and die alone. Twilight deepened around them as the sun disappeared at last, leaving only the scattered stars and a tiny slice of moon to cast their white light on the sand and sea. The clouds on the horizon stayed purple, still tinged by the sun that had only just fled from sight.

"Shelly?"

Even in the darkness, she could see him extend a hand again, silently making the same request from a minute ago. When she did not object, he touched her face again, and she let him. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Shelly reached out too, and he flinched, as though expecting a slap, but instead she brushed the side of his stubbled face before embracing him—numbly, if only to prove to herself that the man in front of her was flesh and blood. He held her too, but gently, as though afraid he might hurt her. Shelly sighed against his chest.

"Shelly, I thought I killed you," she heard him say into her hair. "I thought I killed everyone."

"I thought you wanted to, Archie."

"I did." He squeezed her tighter. "I did then. I don't know why. But...Shelly, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything."

Shelly said nothing. She could feel him shaking, and that was enough.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

It was a few minutes before they both climbed down from the ledge. Pikachu had disappeared somewhere, but Archie did not seem worried about it, and he and Shelly sat on the beach beneath the early stars, the white waves rolling in and out at their feet. After a mutual silence, Archie spoke.

"I'm glad you're okay, Shelly," he said. "Just...don't punch me again, all right?" He rubbed his jaw, where a bruise had already begun to form. "Shit, that hurt."

"I'm sorry, sir."

Archie emitted a low rumble.

"Don't call me 'sir.'"

"All right, then—Archibald."

This elicited another rumble, even louder than the first. Shelly laughed.

"Why don't you like your name? I've always wondered."

"Ehh." Archie rubbed his beard, making it sandy. "I dunno. It's just so...old-fashioned, I guess. Doesn't really fit me."

"I think it does." Shelly paused, then asked curiously, "How did you know my birthday?"

Archie seemed surprised by the question.

"How? You told me once."

"I don't remember that."

"Eh, well..." He looked oddly guilty. "You just kinda mentioned it offhand, a long time ago."

"And you remembered it this whole time?"

"Yeah. I mean...I know Matt's birthday too," he said defensively. Shelly wanted to laugh; she had never heard him get defensive. But the thought of Matt sobered her before she even finished smiling. Archie wiped his nose on his sleeve, then gave a shuddering sigh, his head bowing. He rubbed his sore jaw absently with the back of his hand.

"Archie, what have you been doing out here this whole time?"

"Doing?" Archie frowned. "Well...Not a lot. Thinking, mostly. About you." When this admission produced nothing but a sigh from Shelly, he studied her profile in the twilight, frowning. "Shelly, are you glad to see me?"

"Yes, I am."

"Really?"

"Really. But I won't pretend I don't have a lot of questions."

"Well...I won't pretend I have a lot of answers." Off of her look, he said, "Well, I mean...I don't really have any excuses, for what I did. I was just..."

He cut himself off, and looked away from her, out over the sea shining like ink in the starlight. Tomorrow night would be moonless.

"It's just that all this time, I always imagined it being different," he said slowly. "I never thought I was gonna have to choose between having Kyogre and having...everything else."

"What's 'everything else'?"

"Everything. The team. You. Everything."

He hesitated, then reached across the sand and laid his hand atop hers, squeezing it. Shelly sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"I can't believe you've really been alive this whole time," she said. She sounded exhausted. "You've been all right..."

"Hey, look, it hasn't exactly been a picnic out here." Archie's voice was solemn. "Shit, Shelly, I thought you were dead. Thought everybody at Monsu was dead. Maxie and his guys too...What happened to all of them, anyway?"

"They're here."

"What?"

Shelly straightened, taking her head off his shoulder. "Team Magma. Well, Maxie and Commander Tabitha. They're here on the island. We've been working together ever since Monsu Island."

"What the hell for?"

Shelly seemed to take this question as a signal. She sighed again and stood up, lightly brushing sand off of her pants.

"We should meet up with the others, Archie. I should have been back before now."

Archie stood up too, but did not bother to brush the sand from his clothes. When Shelly started walking up the shore, he followed beside her, not quite keeping pace, so that she was a little ahead of him.

"Look, Shelly, you gotta fill me in," he said. "Who all is here? Did Matt bring the other sub out from base? Shit, I don't have a clue what's been going on..."

Shelly stopped walking. Archie almost ran into her.

"Archie...I don't even know where to start."

"What does that mean?"

"Groudon and Kyogre are on the loose," Shelly said wearily. "They're just...awake, and out of control, roaming Hoenn. There's been an earthquake, and a tsunami, and storms..."

Archie swore.

"Wait, are you serious? Did anybody get hurt?"

Shelly looked balefully at him in the darkness.

"Yes, Archie. A lot of people are dead. And a lot more are hurt, or homeless. Kyogre and Groudon haven't calmed down, and unless we do something to stop them, they'll probably destroy all of Hoenn." She shook her head. "I don't know what's going to happen. We're hoping there's something here that can help, but..."

"Who is 'we'?" Archie interrupted. "Who all's here besides you and Matt?"

"Matt isn't here, Archie. Nobody else from the team is—it's just me. Everybody who was at Monsu Island is still alive...well, at least, they were when I saw them last. I'm not sure now. But the base..."

Shelly did not finish. Archie shifted.

"Fuckin' hell, Shelly, you're freakin' me out over here. What's going on? What happened to everybody else?"

Shelly put a hand to the side of her face and closed her eyes, then let her hand fall and began, as best as she could, to explain.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"She's been gone too long."

Lance was pacing beside the campfire. Every time he pivoted on his heel, the edge of his cape swished dangerously close to the flames; he did not seem to notice. On the other side of the fire, Maxie and Tabitha sat side-by-side on a log; a bead of sweat trickled down Maxie's temple as he pulled at the collar of his coat. Tabitha's Mightyena lay at their feet, its eyes half-lidded, but its ears fully erect. Half a mile offshore, the _Silver Stantler _looked in the darkness of the starry night like some massive Pokémon, sleeping atop the black waves.

"I'm going to go look for her on Dragonite," Lance announced, turning back to face Maxie and Tabitha and unclipping a Pokéball from his belt. "This island isn't that big, there's no reason she should have taken this much longer than the rest of us."

"Perhaps she found something of interest, besides the tower?" said Maxie.

"I'm more worried that maybe something of interest found her."

Lance frowned up at the distant tower, or where he knew it to be; they could see nothing beyond the cliffs now that night had fallen. Before he could summon Dragonite, however, Mightyena raised its head. It growled softly, then swished its tail, staring up the dark, empty beach.

"What's up?" Tabitha asked it. "She coming back?"

Mightyena growled again in a puzzled way, and soon they could distinguish movement further downshore, approaching quickly. It was not a human—the shape was far too swift and small. Mightyena gained its feet as the thing sped closer, and snarled at it when it reached the edge of the ring of orange light cast by the small fire.

"What is it?" Tabitha asked Mightyena. Lance, however, looked astonished.

"Pikachu?"

The creature scampered across the sand into the light. Everyone stared.

"Wait, is that..." Maxie leaned forward. "Is that—that boy's Pikachu? From Monsu Island?"

Pikachu's ears perked up, and it stared straight at him, nodding.

"Pipikachu!"

Mightyena growled loudly again, its attention returning to the distant beach; everyone else, however, was focused on Pikachu.

"Where did you come from, Pikachu?" Lance asked it. "How did you get here on this island? We're nowhere near Monsu..."

Pikachu said something, then pointed over its shoulder, and Mightyena snarled again. It was only then that the others noticed what Mightyena already had: another, larger shape moving towards them through the starlit darkness, already so close that they had time only to register it was human before it strode into the circle of firelight. It was not Shelly.

"Hey, Maxie," the apparition said. "Miss me?"

And it flopped down beside the campfire, grinning.


	22. Chapter 22

Maxie looked stunned; Tabitha, like someone had punched him in the stomach. The Archie-shaped thing laughed.

"What, don't recognize me? Well, I do need a shave..."

Before anyone could find it within themselves to speak, another figure appeared out of the darkness: Shelly. She sat down on the sand next to Archie, looking composed.

"I found Archie," she said matter-of-factly, as though 'Archie' were something useful one might happen to run across, like firewood.

There was a long, stunned silence, filled by the crackling of the small fire and the rhythm of the nearby waves. Lance recovered first.

"Well, I...This...is quite the surprise." He studied Archie in astonishment. "How...how did you get here, Archie?"

"I'm not sure. I just woke up on the beach a few days ago." Archie looked at him curiously from across the campfire. "Who're you, though?"

"My name is Lance." He paused, then asked, "Do you not remember what happened on Monsu Island?"

"Only some of it. Bits and pieces." Archie stretched out his hands towards the fire. After another long look at Lance, he added, "Hey...you were the guy with the Dragonite, weren't you?"

"So you remember that, at least."

"Kind of."

"Do you remember trying to kill us all?" Maxie asked haughtily. Archie acted as if he hadn't heard this.

"Archie," said Lance, "where is the Red Orb? Do you still have it?"

"The Red Orb?" Archie frowned. "Ehh...I'm not exactly sure where it is."

"What do you mean?"

Archie rubbed his beard.

"I don't remember what happened," he said again. "But the little guy and I talked about it, and we think the Orbs might still be inside us both."

"Pi," Pikachu confirmed. Lance looked skeptical.

"Are you sure?"

"No." Archie frowned and rested a hand on his chest, as though seeking his own heartbeat. "I haven't felt weird or anything—not when I'm awake. But when I'm asleep, I keep having these dreams...I don't know how to explain it, but I think it's in there somewhere."

"But it hasn't been bothering you?"

"No. Not once."

"Pi-ka!"

Lance and Archie both looked over at Pikachu.

"The same for you, Pikachu?" Lance asked. "You think the Blue Orb is still inside of you?"

"Pi_ka_chu." It nodded.

"But the Orbs haven't activated at all this entire time..." Lance frowned. "That doesn't make sense. Those Orbs should have responded to Kyogre and Groudon's activities and reacted whenever they were angry—especially if they're bonded to you. They're very powerful objects."

"Maybe we have to be near them," Archie guessed. "Kyogre and Groudon, I mean."

Lance grew thoughtful.

"You know, that might be it," he said. "If you two were separated from Kyogre and Groudon, but your bonds with the Orbs weren't broken, then I suppose the Orbs would have just gone dormant again inside of you both." He looked between Archie and Pikachu. "If that's true, though, then how do we get them out of you?"

"You don't know?"

Pikachu made a noise of slight alarm, echoing Archie's tone.

"We'll find a way," Lance assured them. "We have to. But at least we know where they are—that's good." He shook his head. "I just can't believe...I mean, I'm glad you're both all right, but wow. Wow."

Maxie opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. He was still staring at Archie as though unsure he were really seeing him, and Archie laughed heartily at his expression. His rough voice startled everyone.

"You're awfully quiet, Maxie," he said, with a sarcastic kind of cheerfulness. "Delcatty got your tongue?"

"_You..."_

But that was all Maxie could manage to spit out. Archie laughed again, watching Maxie's pale face twitch.

"Nice of you to come all the way out here just for me. Who knew you Magma types would miss me that much, eh?"

"We didn't come here for you," Tabitha snapped. Maxie collected himself and touched Tabitha lightly on the arm.

"Ignore him, Tabitha. He's like a child, he just wants attention."

"Oh, go fuck yourself."

Tabitha lunged to his feet.

"Don't speak to Maxie that way!"

"Heh. Keep your pants on, Shirley."

"My name is _Tabitha."_

"Eh, same difference."

"Archie, be nice," Shelly said.

The command was not given harshly, but it was a command nonetheless, and to general surprise, Archie shut up at once. He did emit a low rumble of displeasure, but after a glance exchanged with Shelly, this too died down. Tabitha remained on his feet, his fists and teeth clenched, until Maxie tugged on the end of his short red cape, making him look down. When Maxie nodded to him, he took his seat again. He still looked discomposed, and glowered at Archie, who he seemed to regard as having come back to life for the sole purpose of infuriating him.

"Well, this shakes things up a little," Lance said, after a beat of awkward silence had passed. "Archie, how much do you know about what's going on now?"

"Shelly filled me in." The two of them exchanged glances. "So Kyogre and Groudon are still running around, huh?"

"Yes, and we're trying to stop them. Are you willing to help out?"

Archie looked taken aback.

"Ehh—yeah. I mean, I don't know what I could do, but...if that's the plan..."

"Do you mean it?"

"Of course I mean it, why wouldn't I?"

"Well, the last time I saw you, you tried to kill me with Kyogre."

"Right, right," Archie muttered. "Uh...Sorry about that. Bad call on my part, I guess."

"You guess?"

Archie looked flustered. "Er, I meant..." He looked helplessly at Shelly, but she did not step in, and so he continued, "Look, that was fucked up. I got carried away. I don't remember it very well, but...well, yeah. Sorry."

"_Sorry _doesn't cut it, asshole," said Tabitha. Maxie touched his arm again, and he fell silent. Archie ignored this comment.

Lance rubbed his temple, shaking his head at Archie, then turned his attention to Pikachu, which had taken a seat nearby.

"Good to see you too, Pikachu," he told it warmly. "Ash will be really glad to know you're safe."

"Pi! Pikapi?" Pikachu looked around hopefully, but Lance shook his head.

"Sorry, Pikachu—Ash and his friends are on Mossdeep Island. We don't have a way to contact them right now."

Pikachu looked disappointed, and its ears drooped. Lance smiled down at it.

"Hey, cheer up," he said. "Ash hasn't given up on you. We'll get you back to him as soon as we can, but we've got more important things to do right now. We're here on a mission."

"Mission?" Archie echoed, then glanced to Shelly. "What do you think's up with this place?"

Lance jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the center of the island.

"We came to investigate that tower," he said. "We think there's a chance it has something inside it that can put a stop to Kyogre and Groudon's rampage. You wouldn't have happened to notice anything unusual about it while you were here, would you?"

Archie gazed up into the distant darkness, where the outline of the tower was only just visible against the stars.

"That's strange..." he muttered. "Real strange."

"What's strange?" asked Lance. Archie returned his attention to him.

"We tried to explore the tower earlier today," Archie said. "Me and the little guy. Door was sealed over, so we tried to break in, but all we did was block the entrance—something crashed down inside it. I think the whole thing's falling apart on the inside. It won't be easy getting in."

"I've got a Dragonite," Lance reminded him, "and Captain Drake has a Salamence. I'm sure we can manage it. If the tower's unstable inside, though, that's a problem. I was hoping to take a look at it tonight, but that won't be a good idea if it's in danger of falling down around us. Hm." He looked annoyed. "I guess the safest thing to do is wait until the morning. We'll lose a lot of time...but it won't do anyone any good if we get killed tonight, either."

"What's up there in that tower?" Archie asked him.

"We don't know," said Lance, "but like I said, we think there might be some artifact in there that can calm Kyogre and Groudon down. We'll go looking for it tomorrow, first thing."

"All of us?" Tabitha asked, throwing a glare at Archie, who snorted.

"What, you think I shouldn't go?"

"What if I don't?"

"Well, you can go to hell, is what."

"Archie..."

"What? Amanda over there is the one who's being a prick."

"My name isn't Amanda."

"Don't encourage him, Tabitha."

"Oh, screw you, you son of a—"

"Archie, don't cause—"

"Take that back—"

"Tabitha, really, it's no use—"

"All of you _shut up!"_

Lance's voice cut across the din. Instantly everyone quieted, out of shock more than anything else, and Lance glared between them all with an expression of deep distaste.

"You people are disgusting," he said. "I can't believe you all. Every day, more and more people and Pokémon are dying from _your_ mistakes, and instead of taking responsibility for your actions, you'd rather sit here and call each other names like a bunch of catty schoolgirls. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic."

"Instead of taking—" Shelly looked indignant. "What do you think we're doing here now?"

"You're squabbling like brats," said Lance shortly, "and it's ridiculous."

He looked between Archie and Shelly on one side of the campfire, and Maxie and Tabitha on the other.

"I'm going to do this with or without you all," he said, "and I'm not a babysitter. If you're going to be here, and if you want to help, then you're going to have to put aside your differences and cooperate with each other. So man up and shake hands."

Once more, he looked between the two parties; Maxie and Archie glared at each other. Then Maxie cleared his throat and said, a little pompously, "Well, of course _we're _willing to do whatever is necessary to accomplish our objective. I don't think—"

"Shake hands."

Maxie blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You thought that was a metaphor?" Lance looked between Maxie and Archie. "I mean it, shake hands. I want to see it."

He crossed his arms and stood waiting. Maxie balked, and Archie scowled, frowning at Maxie across the campfire.

"Fine," he said gruffly, extending his hand just to the side of the hot fire. Lance looked to Maxie.

"I hardly think this is fair," Maxie said, glancing between Lance and Archie as though they had conspired against him. "I see no reason for such formality."

Lance raised an eyebrow at him. He deflated, then grimaced.

"Oh, very well..."

He reached out and gripped Archie's hand. Calling it a handshake would have been an exaggeration, and both men had rather strained looks as they stared each other down, but Archie seemed less bothered by it than Maxie; when they let go he simply sat back, making no comment, while Maxie made a show of wiping his hand on his coat. Lance rubbed the side of his face.

"Thanks, you two," he said, sounding at once relieved and exasperated. "You don't have to pretend to like each other, just—don't start fighting again. We don't have time."

"Understood," Maxie muttered.

"Deal," Archie said at the same time. He paused, then added, "Now what?"

Lance tossed his cape over his shoulder.

"Back to the ship," he said resolutely. "We've canvassed the island, and we know more or less what we're up against. Only thing for it now is to wait until dawn and get inside that tower." He jerked his head offshore, in the direction of the _Silver Stantler_, then unclipped a Pokéball from his belt. "I'll put out the fire."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"What took you all so long?" was Drake's first question, when they had arrived at the ship and were clambering one by one onto the lamplit deck off of Gyarados. "Thought you were going to scout out the island, not have a marshmallow roast."

It took him a second to realize that the landing party that had returned contained more people than the one that had left. He took a few steps forward and removed his pipe from his mouth, regarding Archie not so much with surprise as with something like gruff consternation.

"Who the blue blazes are you?" Drake asked him. "Thought nobody lived on this island."

"Do I look like I live here?" Archie retorted, plucking at his torn and dirty shirt. But the ship itself had clearly taken his attention more than Drake had. He looked as though he had stumbled into a room full of treasure, his gaze darting over the quarterdeck and masts; Drake, noticing his curiosity, frowned at him.

"What's caught your eye, son?"

"This your ship?"

"That she is."

"You have her built from scratch, or outfit her off another hull?"

Drake paused before answering, visibly suspicious, his mustache bristling.

"Found her rotting out in the Sevii Islands a long time ago," said Drake at last. "She was called the _Pelipper _then_. _Museum had her as a floating exhibit, didn't have the money to keep her going...I bought her, stripped her down, built her back up, and renamed her the _Silver Stantler_. Been running almost twenty years now under canvas, no motor. They'd stuck a diesel engine on her at the museum, but I scrapped it first thing."

"Hah! Really?" Archie stuck his hands in his pockets, surveying the wide deck. "Haven't seen anything square-rigged this big since...hell, last time I was at the Tall Ships' Races outta Driftveil. And that wasn't yesterday." He gazed up at the creaking masts and their maze of rigging, shrouds, and gaskets, visibly impressed. "So what does she usually run? Ten knots? Eleven?"

"Thirteen and a half, if she's empty."

"Under full canvas?"

"And a following sea."

The two men sized each other up. Then, quite spontaneously, they shook hands.

"Name's Archie."

"Drake. Though around here folks just call me _captain._" He surveyed the newcomer appreciatively. "So, you're the brains behind Team Aqua, is that it?"

"How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess." Drake looked between Archie, Shelly, Maxie, and Tabitha in turn. "Well. Looks like this is a nice little family reunion for you all."

Maxie looked indignant, but did not have time to protest; Drake had already turned his attention to Lance, standing off to the side beside one of the lanterns hanging off of the bulwark.

"Wallace wants to see you," Drake told him. "He's down below right now with Jeremiah. Seems they're still having trouble getting hold of Sootopolis."

"That's not good," said Lance at once. "Steven's not responding?"

"No. Haven't heard a peep since the last transmission, and now they're two hours overdue."

"Who's Steven?" Archie asked; no one answered him, but his query did make Lance and Drake look over.

"You four..." Lance began, but a tug on his cape made him look down. Pikachu blinked up at him and said something; Lance looked surprised to see it, and apologetically scratched behind one ear.

"Pika_chu?"_

"Don't worry, Pikachu, we'll get you sorted out," he told it. "Captain, I don't suppose you've got some extra Pokémon food?"

"That I do, and plenty of it, but I make it myself, so it's tailored for dragons." Drake produced his pipe from a pocket of his coat and stuck it in his mouth with a flourish, appraising Pikachu, which barely reached the top of his boots. "Still, it'll do. I suppose you were marooned here too?"

Pikachu nodded; Lance explained, "This Pikachu belongs to a young trainer named Ash. I'm acquainted with him, but he's on Mossdeep Island. We'll just have to keep it with us for now."

"What about me?" Archie asked. Drake and Lance looked over at him again, and he said, with a touch of indignation, "I'm hungry too."

"Well, Fitzwilliam can see to all that. Fitzwilliam!"

The young first mate, who had been watching this exchange by the tiller a respectful distance away, now approached.

"Yes, captain?"

"Get these two fed and watered." He indicated Archie and Pikachu with a wave of his pipe over his shoulder. "And clean 'em both up while you're at it. Altaria's food should do for the Pikachu."

Pikachu bounded across the deck at once. Archie exchanged looks with Shelly, who sighed and said, "I'll be in my cabin," which Archie seemed to take as permission to follow Fitzwilliam and Pikachu; he ran a hand through his grimy hair as he did. Lance swept away at once, heading for the ladder down to the lower deck. He did not even climb down the whole thing; before he had quite reached the bottom, he jumped and landed on the main deck, hurrying away towards the hatch that led down into the forecastle.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Maxie and Tabitha remained topsides long after the others had dispersed. Maxie had seen enough of the inside of his cabin, as he had spent the better part of the day lying in it seasick, and was enjoying the fresh air now that they were moored again. Tabitha, for his part, had nowhere better to be, and in any case always seemed a little on edge when he was not near Maxie, as though Maxie should not be allowed to roam without supervision. For a long time the two of them said nothing, simply standing on the quarterdeck near one of the sputtering oil lamps hanging off the port bow, gazing out at the black water, Tabitha with his hands in his pockets and his horned hood thrown back. The salty wind kept the night from being too warm.

"But how on Earth did he manage it?"

Maxie said this abruptly, without any context, but his meaning was obvious.

"I don't know, sir. But I still don't trust him."

"That's very sensible of you. Neither do I." Maxie rubbed his jaw, exhaling. "I just don't understand...We're hundreds of miles from Monsu Island, neither Kyogre nor Groudon are anywhere near here..."

"Maybe it had something to do with the Orbs."

"Perhaps." Maxie glanced towards the island, and the black tower rising from its center, blocking out the stars. "Still...It's extraordinary. I've spent all this time thinking I was rid of him." He paused, then added, "To be perfectly honest, I can't say I'm displeased. Disturbed, I grant you, but not terribly displeased."

"Why not?"

"I've not enjoyed cleaning up after him," was the explanation. "Or after us, rather. Now he can share my burden in this situation. Not that I really expect it of him, but nevertheless..."

"That's my job."

"What is?"

"Sharing your burden."

Maxie laughed.

"That's really how you think of it, isn't it, Tabitha? You genuinely..."

He trailed off, and as he studied Tabitha's face an unusual expression crossed his own—at once grateful and yet sad, as though something about Tabitha disappointed him. Tabitha noticed at once, and asked, "Is everything all right, Maxie?"

"I...Yes. Everything is fine." He paused. "Well, no, that isn't it, nothing is fine anymore, but...It's nothing important. Really."

He did not look at Tabitha as he said this, and let his hand fall. Tabitha did not inquire further, and they shared another silence, Maxie gazing out towards the dark island and Tabitha studying the stars. From this distance, the sound of the waves breaking on the beach sounded like a mournful voice.

"Tabitha?"

"Sir?"

"What do you suppose we'll find tomorrow?"

As one they looked over their shoulders at the island of Sky Pillar. It had been a shot in the dark, the first of what they assumed would be many random and fruitless guesses; the fact that the island had promptly returned the two bearers of the Orbs to them made it mysterious, even threatening. It had secrets, and it seemed to know that they wanted them; the question lay only in what obstacles it would set before they could acquire that knowledge. The top of the tower was shrouded by unnatural cloud.

"I'm not sure," Tabitha answered, still gazing at the hidden upper reaches of the black tower. "But I have a feeling this is the place we need to be."

"So do I. It's unsettling."

They exchanged looks, but Maxie glanced away quickly. Tabitha noticed, but said nothing.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The knock surprised Shelly, though it was not loud or forceful. She stopped combing her wet hair, twisting around to look at the cabin door behind her.

"Shelly, can I come in?"

Shelly hesitated, gazing at the closed door, then relented. "Yes, Archie."

The door creaked open, and Archie peered inside. He had had a shower, and paused on the threshold with one hand on the doorknob, clad in some crewman's spare clothes, his wet beard and mustache trim again. He did not actually enter the cabin until Shelly repeated herself, and even then, he simply stepped inside and closed the door behind him, saying nothing.

If it was strange to see him alive, it was even stranger to see him act like this. Shelly could not remember him ever being this hesitant. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and asked, "Can I stay?"

Shelly's answer was a sigh, but Archie understood it for permission and sat next to her on the edge of the narrow bunk, watching her as she resumed untangling her long, lank hair. After a moment, she paused.

"Did you want to talk to me, Archie?"

"Not really," he admitted. "I mean—not if you don't want to talk."

There was silence as Shelly combed her hair and Archie watched. She had a feeling he did want to say something, and did not rush him, knowing he could not restrain himself for long. She was right. After half a minute he blurted, "Can I do that?"

"Do what?"

"Comb your hair."

They stared at one another, Shelly amused, Archie a little embarrassed. But then Shelly laughed despite herself, and Archie relaxed. She tossed her head and shifted so that her back was to him, holding the comb over her shoulder.

"Well, if you really want to, I suppose."

"I do," said Archie firmly, and soon his calloused hands were running through her damp hair, working out the easiest of the tangles before he tried tugging at the rest with the comb. He was clumsy, but gentle. As the silent minutes passed, he sometimes paused his work to scratch her scalp, making her eyes close.

When Archie kissed the top of her head, Shelly tensed. He touched her shoulder, asking a wordless question, and she sighed and answered aloud.

"Archie, this wasn't supposed to happen."

"I know." His voice was oddly subdued. "But I swear, Shelly, I swear on my life I thought the Red Orb would control Kyogre. If I had known everything was going to turn out like this, I never would have—"

"No, Archie." Shelly tilted her head all the way back so that she was gazing up into his face, the crown of her head pressed against his shirt. "I meant this. Us."

"What about us?"

"There wasn't supposed to _be _an 'us.' Remember? We both agreed when we started this that we wouldn't let it get...complicated."

Archie frowned, absently running a thumb along her hairline.

"Yeah, I know. But, I guess sometimes things get complicated whether you want them to or not. Besides..." He wrapped his other arm around her, holding her against his chest. "This isn't that complicated, is it? I mean, it makes sense."

"Does it really?"

"It does to me." His beard itched her when he nuzzled her forehead. A thought seemed to occur to him, because he asked abruptly, "Shelly, are you scared of me?"

"Scared of you? No. But...I don't know how much I can trust you anymore."

"I trust _you." _He squeezed her tighter. "I trust you more than anybody in the world, Shelly. You know that."

Shelly closed her eyes, letting herself relax, burying the side of her face in the crook of Archie's neck as he rubbed her back. His borrowed shirt was scratchy against her neck.

"I didn't want to hate you, Archie," she murmured.

"Hm?"

She looked up at him. "All this time, I've been angry with you because I didn't want to think I'd trusted you for nothing...that everything we did meant nothing to you. I didn't want to believe you were a monster."

"Do I seem like a monster?"

"You did that day."

Archie mulled this over.

"Shelly...I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything that happened, what I did..." He exhaled. "It's all turned out wrong, the whole damn thing. We were supposed to have anything we wanted, and now...Well, I don't know what's gonna happen now. Everything is fucked."

Shelly laughed a little. Archie blinked down at her, and she smiled wearily.

"It's nothing, Archie. It's just...That's what I told Matt, too, the day you disappeared. 'Everything is fucked.'"

Archie frowned and rested his chin on the top of her head.

"I hope Matt's okay," he muttered. "And everybody else."

"Me too."

Silence reigned again. The comb lay forgotten beside the pair of them as they sat holding each other, saying nothing, the only sounds the occasional half-heard voice or footsteps from elsewhere in the creaking ship. When Shelly reached up and kissed Archie, it took him by surprise.

"You smell a lot better," she teased.

He laughed. It sounded like his old self, deep and genuine, and he kissed her back so fiercely that she had to steady herself to keep from sprawling across the bed.

"Stop it. I just took a shower."

He stopped kissing her neck, and she pushed him away, gently but firmly.

"Oh." He looked crestfallen. "I'm sorry, Shelly. I thought..."

But he trailed off. Shelly's smile had given her away, and she reached out and hooked one finger around the silver chain at his throat.

"I'm joking, Archie. Come here."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Even when moored, the ship needed a great deal of attention. Crewmen and their Pokémon bustled over the lower deck and through the rigging, making sure everything that needed to be secure had been properly fastened; on the quarterdeck, Fitzwilliam took surveys of the stars. But there was little work to be done in the front of the ship, and so as the silent hours passed the forecastle deck remained empty, or nearly so. Around midnight a pair of men stood talking just along the port side, one pacing, the other standing still, though not looking at his companion.

"It could just be an equipment failure on their end."

Lance stopped pacing as he said this, turning to regard Wallace, who was standing beside the bulwark with one hand resting on it, gazing not back towards the island of Sky Pillar, but out over the black water sprinkled with reflected stars, northeast towards Sootopolis City.

"It could," Wallace admitted. "But in that case, I would have expected to hear something through other channels. They simply can't pick up anything at all from the area. It's as if there's been another blackout, worse than the first..."

"It's not another earthquake, at least," Lance said. "We would have felt it here."

"That's not much reassurance."

Lance rubbed the side of his face, his cape rustling, staring hard at the deck before looking back up at Wallace, who was backlit by a lantern hanging on the bowsprit.

"So what do you want to do?"

Wallace did not answer right away. Instead he turned away again to gaze out over the water, and when he spoke, he seemed to be addressing the sea.

"I don't want to sound flighty," he said at last, "but I'm worried about Sootopolis. I've got to go back." In response to Lance's unasked question, he added, "What disturbs me is that we can't get in contact with Steven. He would have done everything in his power to keep communications open, no matter the weather; we'd planned for it. Things must have gotten bad there—worse even than anyone anticipated."

Lance ran a hand through his hair, then glanced over at Sky Pillar before saying, "Well, at least we know Groudon's not there. It can't be, unless it's learned Teleport."

"And yet I can't help but worry," said Wallace. "Granted, you've seen both the ancient Pokémon yourself, and I haven't. But our Hoenn legends are very adamant about how powerful they are, and about the strength of their rivalry. If Kyogre's decided, for whatever reason, to wreck havoc on Sootopolis specifically..."

"We don't know that. We have no idea what it's doing there."

"So says your reason. And what of your instinct?"

Wallace looked over at Lance, regarding him keenly. It was a question posed by one Champion to another, asking him to call upon that intangible faculty that had let him claim his title; in the lamplight Lance looked grim, and tense. He rubbed the back of his neck before speaking.

"My instinct? Well...I don't know what Kyogre's up to in Sootopolis, or what's going on with Steven and the others. But I think that eventually—as soon as they're ready—Kyogre and Groudon are going to go at it tooth and nail again, and not let up until there's a winner. The question is when they'll do it, and where."

Wallace nodded his agreement, then said, "I had thought helping you with your search would be the best thing I could do for my region. But now I realize I was mistaken. I should never have left Sootopolis."

"You're really going to go back and see what's happening? It's a long way to travel."

"I have no choice."

Wallace gazed up at the night sky.

"What's the sense in calling me a _champion_ if I can't protect those who need it?" he asked the stars, resting his other hand on the bulwark. "My own city..."

"Steven will fight for Sootopolis, if it comes to that," Lance reminded him. "And Juan."

Wallace took a deep breath through his nose. His brow was furrowed, his handsome face set in a determined expression; he looked almost angry with himself.

"I'm going," he finally said. "Right away. If I leave now I should be able to make it back tomorrow afternoon."

"Do you need a ride? I've got Gyarados."

"No, I'm all right. My own Pokémon can see me through." His white cowl swirled around him when he let go of the bulwark and turned to face the waiting Lance. "Thank you for allowing me to accompany you this far. I'm sorry for leaving you so suddenly, after volunteering to come along. It must seem rash."

"I can't tell you what to do. If you think Sootopolis needs you, then don't let us hold you up."

Lance and Wallace sized each other up. Wallace was a little taller, and a little older; despite the delicacy of his features, there was something hard in his profile, a quiet strength in the way his clear eyes flashed. When he bowed lightly to Lance, Lance raised his chin in acknowledgement of the honor.

"Everything is in your hands now," Wallace said. He extended his hand, and he and Lance clasped forearms. "Good luck, and be safe, if you can."

"The same to you." Lance nodded. "Contact us if you have a chance, let us know what's going on back there. If you need help..."

They let go of each other. Lance nodded again, then turned away, his cape swishing; Wallace did the same, striding across the forecastle deck towards the bowsprit, facing out to sea. When Lance glanced over his shoulder, he had one final impression of Wallace, silhouetted against the bright stars, his cowl rippling as he summoned a Pokémon to carry him the first leg of the distance that he had put between himself and the home he loved best.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"Shelly?"

She did not open her eyes. Archie had propped himself up on his elbow and was idly tracing her hairline with one finger; he smiled and ran the finger all the way down her jaw and under her chin, making her laugh a little. She opened one eye.

"What is it, Archie?"

"Nothing." He bent and kissed her forehead. "You're here, that's all."

She was real. She was really alive here beside him, tired and content, shining with sweat that tasted like the sea, and as Archie watched her breathe he felt something inside him settle like a shifting tide. He wondered whether this was something different from happiness, or whether he had just never been really happy before—had never understood what that word could mean. Shelly reached up to caress his face with the back of her fingers.

"Hey."

"What?"

She just smiled. Archie grinned and gave a quiet laugh that was more like a growl. Shelly let her hand wander, running down to his bare shoulder, stopping to trace the outline of the Team Aqua symbol tattooed there before letting her arm fall limp across him; Archie laid down and pressed his face into her long red hair, not caring that it was still damp. For a while they lay side-by-side in silence, their eyes closed, the noise of the waves against the hull mingling with the wooden sounds of the old ship and the distant voices of the crew.

"...Shelly?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm sorry."

"You already told me that."

"...Shelly?"

"Hmm?"

"You're pretty..."

"I know, Archie. Go to sleep now."

He muttered some protest, but obeyed soon enough; within a few minutes he was snoring gently, his foul breath warm on the side of her face and neck. Shelly did not mind. She shifted to a more comfortable position against him, draping an arm across his hairy chest, her face buried against his muscular shoulder.

Her mind wandered as she lay there, growing ever sleepier. So strange, how these things happened...If she could have warned herself that she would one day get involved with a sailor ten years her senior, who thought a low-cut leisure suit with a popped collar was a tasteful choice of attire...Well, there would have been no point trying to warn herself. She would never have believed it. And then he'd died...But no, he had never been dead, had he? Just gone. The sea had taken him away for a while, to teach him about pain, and then given him back to her...

"Archie, what am I going to do with you?" she mumbled.

The only answer she got was a louder-than-average snore. Shelly could not suppress a laugh, and rested her head on Archie's chest, closing her eyes, letting his heartbeat lull her to sleep.


	23. Chapter 23

Maxie watched the sun rise. He had woken very early, and stood on the forecastle deck near the ship's prow in the first light of morning, blinking wearily, sustaining himself with drags of a cigarette he'd gotten from one of the sailors. He had quit years ago, but the familiar sensation was welcome now, and he savored the taste of smoke as he pulled the bathrobe he'd borrowed closer around his thin frame. Behind and below him, he heard a few crewmen milling about on the main deck, but the ship was so spacious that their presence did not bother him—nor he them. After a while, he tuned out the sound of them altogether.

The sun changed from red to yellow as it peeked above the horizon, infusing the sea with melted gold; the wind made quiet noises through the rigging, punctuated sometimes by a louder clack when a pulley knocked against its neighbor. The water that lapped against the side of the ship sounded sleepy, as if not even the sea was quite ready to be active yet.

"How are you, Maxie?"

Maxie almost dropped his cigarette. Archie's rumbling laugh echoed across the deck, and he soon appeared in the flesh in clothes that did not quite fit, his hair wet, one hand clutching a mug of steaming coffee. Maxie instantly found his good mood almost obscene—after everything that had happened over the last week, Archie should (he felt) at least have the decency to act chastised. But of course, that was expecting too much. There he was, looking for all the world like this was the start of an excellent day, like he had no considerations beyond the fact that the sunrise was beautiful and his coffee was delicious.

"I've been better," Maxie said dryly. "Yourself?"

"Eh, kinda tired." He stifled a huge yawn and scratched behind an ear with his free hand. "Didn't get much sleep."

"I suppose it must have been strange to sleep in a bed again."

"Yeah," Archie mused. "That, and Shelly and I were up all night screwing."

Maxie choked on the smoke he was inhaling. Archie smirked behind a deep swig of coffee while Maxie coughed; at last Maxie composed himself and gasped, "I didn't need to know that."

"What's it to you, Maxie?" Archie asked, a little maliciously. "Jealous?"

"Hardly, you philistine. I simply didn't need to start my day with that image."

"Get over it." Another swig of coffee. "I didn't plan on starting my day shooting the breeze with you, but here we are. Funny how that works, huh?"

"You could leave."

"Why should I? I've got just as much right to be standing here as you do."

Maxie muttered something darkly and kept smoking, and for a while there was relative silence. Archie broke it.

"So, where's your boyfriend?"

Maxie stopped himself in the act of tapping ash from his cigarette off against the railing. "What?"

"Tiffany. He still asleep?"

Maxie grimaced.

"_Tabitha_ and I are not—involved," he said loftily. "And I'll thank you not to make assumptions about my personal life."

"Why's he here, then?"

"What?"

"Why's the kid here if you two aren't together?"

"Tabitha is not a child. He's twenty-five."

Archie scrutinized Maxie for a moment, then shook his head and drank more coffee.

"Well, if he's still sticking around for Team Magma, then he's dumb as a dead Tentacool," was the verdict. "From what Shelly's told me, everything's gone to hell."

"To put it mildly."

Maxie finished his cigarette. Instead of extinguishing the butt against the polished bulwark, he flicked it into the sea. Archie made a noise of displeasure.

"I could push you overboard right now and nobody would know it wasn't an accident," he warned.

"I'm fairly certain that would violate the truce."

"Truce?"

"Commander Shelly and I came to an agreement a few days ago. She took charge, naturally, once you had gone, and saw no sense in furthering our dispute." He paused. "She's an extraordinary woman. She could do much better than the likes of you."

"What, you think I don't know that?" Archie looked annoyed; Maxie seemed to have touched a nerve. "Hell, I'm lucky she didn't kick my ass yesterday. I would have deserved it." He scowled and rubbed a visible bruise on his jaw, then drained the last of his coffee and set the empty mug on the bulwark. "Least she's all right, y'know?"

Maxie watched Archie curiously, a puzzled frown playing around the corners of his mouth.

"Why are you talking to me, Archie?" he asked at last. "I would have thought I would be the last person on Earth with whom you would wish to speak."

Archie muttered something that seemed to contain the word _glad. _Maxie raised an eyebrow.

"Did you say something?"

"I'm glad I didn't kill you," Archie said, a little louder. "Don't make me say it again."

Maxie's face registered astonishment as the meaning of this sank in.

"Are you...trying to apologize?"

Archie glanced over his shoulder at the distant crewmen.

"Keep it down," he growled. "Yeah, I guess I kind of am. Kind of."

"Well, I hope you won't take it amiss if I don't believe you. Really, you can't think I would, after what you did."

"I don't care what you think."

"Hmph." Maxie's disdain sharpened. "Well, all well and good for _you._ You've been relaxing on a tropical island for a week, and having a lovely time of it, no doubt, while the rest of us have been doing what we can about Kyogre and Groudon—which is precious little, may I add. You can hardly—"

"Fuck you, Maxie. You don't know what it's been like out here."

This was said with such conviction that Maxie cut off what he was about to add, his eyebrows raising. Archie wiped coffee out of his mustache.

"I've been stuck here on this fucking island for a week by myself, nothing to do, nobody around but the little guy, and I thought I'd killed everybody at Monsu..." He stared off into the sunrise. "Kept having these nightmares about it, and then I'd wake up and it was all true, and I couldn't even drink it away. Thought you were dead, thought all your guys were dead, thought I'd fucking murdered Shelly and everybody else, and I didn't have shit to show for it. Kyogre was gone...And sometimes I thought, what if this is it? What if Kyogre's flooded the whole damn planet and I'm the only one left? I know it sounds nuts, but I—fuck, how was I supposed to know? I didn't remember what happened..."

He glared at Maxie as though daring him to laugh, but Maxie did not look amused. Archie exhaled through his nose and returned his attention to the bright horizon.

"I never wanted to kill you, Maxie," he said. "Kick your ass, sure, but...Hell, if I thought that was the best way to do things, I could've bumped you off ages ago. Wouldn't have been hard."

"Oh, I'm sure it would have presented somewhat of a challenge."

"Don't kid yourself, you old bastard."

"Hmph." Maxie raised his chin. "Well, I readily admit I never had the intention to murder _you. _Or anyone, for that matter. It's no business of mine if you and your organization want to behave like common criminals, but I had never—"

"Save it, Maxie," Archie growled. "You wanted the same damn thing I did, and it would've turned out the same if you'd come out on top. Don't stand there and try to feed me your self-righteous bullshit—this is your fault too."

This was perfectly true, but Maxie found it easier to rehash old lies to Archie's face, rather than admit the unpleasant facts he had come to realize since they'd seen each other last. He scowled and tightened the fastening on his bathrobe.

"That is neither here nor there at this point," he said. "We're in the same situation now, for better or worse. I don't relish the thought, but we'd best put aside our differences for the time being."

"You sound like that Lance guy."

"Yes, well, he has a point. This situation has gotten rather bigger than the both of us. What we've done has had consequences far beyond what either of us intended."

Archie accepted this assessment by his silence. They each watched the dawn strengthen, the world around them awakening to color; the blue sea sparkled in a long strip where the rising sun touched it, creating a glittering path to the horizon. Archie scratched his bearded chin.

"I'll tell you what your problem is, Maxie," he said conversationally, as though he'd been asked. "You think too much."

"You would consider thinking a problem, wouldn't you, Archie?"

"Oh, up yours. You know what I mean."

"I'm afraid I don't."

"Hmph. Well, I've got a philosophy: 'Know what you want, and then do it.'"

"You haven't changed at all."

"Neither have you."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"Same."

Archie and Maxie glared at each other, scowling, the rising sun tossing light between them.

"Well...There's no point arguing over which of us is more at fault," said Maxie finally. "If there is a villain in this situation, it's the both of us."

"Weird way to put it."

They exchanged looks again, still scowling, but with a grudging understanding dampening their ire. Archie shook his head and ran a hand through his drying hair, frowning, but not particularly angry; Maxie adjusted his bathrobe in dignified silence. Though they seemed to have no more conversation in them, neither of them turned and left. It would have been like admitting a defeat of some kind.

That was how Tabitha found them, when he arrived on deck: standing side-by-side near the bowsprit, watching the sunrise and thinking their own thoughts, saying nothing and yet, for all their silence, composed. It was the odd ease of two people who were familiar with one another in a way that transcended whatever they happened to be feeling at the time; whether they liked or loathed one another was immaterial, because they understood each other beneath it all. Tabitha found this suspicious. He stood looking between Maxie and Archie's backs, frowning, waiting for this bizarre scene to change; when it did not, he broke the silence himself.

"Good morning, sir."

Maxie and Archie both turned; Archie smirked at the sight of him, and Tabitha stiffened, raising his chin. Maxie smiled wearily.

"The same to you, Tabitha."

Tabitha nodded to him, then glared at Archie.

"What are you up to?"

"Morning to you too, Britney."

Archie laughed, then plucked his empty coffee mug off of the bulwark. Tabitha's arrival seemed to have ended whatever reverie he had been in.

"I'm gonna go find breakfast," he announced, then turned and strolled away. He called heartily to the crewmen he passed on his way back to the lower deck. Tabitha ground his teeth.

"My _name..."_

"Don't trouble yourself over it, Tabitha. He was just trying to get a rise out of you." Maxie frowned at Archie's receding figure. "He's good at that, I will admit."

Tabitha scowled at Archie's back until he disappeared down the stairs to the main deck. Then, once Archie was a safe distance away, he turned back to Maxie.

"How was your night?"

"Uneventful. Though that's in no way a complaint, under the circumstances. What about yourself?"

"Didn't get much sleep." Tabitha blinked and rubbed the side of his face. "Shelly and Archie were up all night screwing."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." Tabitha rubbed his face again. "Haven't been sleeping well lately anyway."

He did not elaborate, and Maxie did not ask. Tabitha spared a glance for the sunrise, then said, "We're having breakfast with the captain soon, sir. He's invited us all."

"Are we? Well...That's one question answered, then."

Maxie turned back to face the ocean and rested both palms on the painted bulwark. Tabitha wavered, unsure whether he was being dismissed until Maxie said, without looking over, "Go do whatever you wish, Tabitha. I'll be at breakfast."

"Yes, sir."

But Tabitha did not move. Though Maxie did not look over at him, he could still see him as a patch of red hovering on the edge of his field of vision. He wondered how obvious his discomfort was.

"Maxie—are you all right?"

"Perfectly, Tabitha. Thank you for asking." Before Tabitha could inquire further, he lied, for emphasis, "I'd simply like to be alone."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The captain's dining cabin was a strange sight. Drake sat at the head of the table, shirtless as always beneath his open coat, presiding over the small group like a king at a royal banquet. Archie and Shelly sat on one side, Maxie and Tabitha on the other, and the far seat, across from Drake, was occupied by Lance. They were having pancakes. Archie had already gotten through half a dozen with such speed and violence that Maxie, sitting across from him, seemed to find it impossible to eat in close proximity to such a spectacle; he looked disgusted, his laden fork hovering over his plate, watching Archie's food disappear. After another minute, Shelly gently elbowed Archie in the ribs.

"Archie, slow down."

"I'm fuckin' starving," he said in a muffled voice.

"No cussing on my ship in good weather." Drake folded his arms across his chest. "And don't eat like an animal, you'll make people sick."

Archie looked ready to argue through a mouthful of pancake, but Shelly squeezed his knee underneath the table, and he said nothing, instead giving her a look before swallowing and taking his next bite much more carefully. The awkward silence that ensued did not last long; soon Archie and Drake had fallen deep into conversation, but they might as well have been speaking in tongues, for all that could be understood of it. The others caught isolated words like _foretopgallantsail, _but these meant nothing to anyone—except perhaps Shelly, though she did not offer any comment of her own. She kept looking over at Archie and watching him talk for half a minute at a time, her mouth twitching, as though tempted to smile.

When everyone had more or less filled themselves, Lance pulled his chair closer to the table and poured himself more coffee, then raised his voice to address everyone.

"I don't mean to interrupt," he said, causing the others to look over at him, "but we need to get going as soon as possible today. Obviously we've got to go investigate that tower, but I don't think all four of you should come along. If it's dangerous, there's no reason to have more explorers than we really need."

"We're coming," said Shelly at once. "How many times are we going to have this conversation? You're the one who asked for our help in the first place."

"Yes, but..."

Lance looked exasperated, and sighed, scratching the back of his head.

"All right, fine. But you all understand: we have to work together, all right? No bickering."

He looked pointedly between Maxie and Archie, who glared across the table at each other before each nodding at him.

"Okay, good." Lance took a gulp of coffee. "Captain, has there been any word at all from Sootopolis City?"

"Not a peep, last I checked, but we'll keep listening. I've put two men on it."

"Good. And speaking of Sootopolis..." Lance looked around the table. "Wallace is gone."

"Who?" asked Archie, but the other three looked interested.

"Gone?" said Maxie. "How do you mean?"

"He left on his Pokémon last night, after we lost contact with the city. I don't blame him, to be honest, but I would've liked another skilled trainer for backup today."

"Who is Wallace?" Archie asked Shelly. Drake answered him.

"Champion of the Hoenn League," he said. "Water Pokémon trainer. A sight tougher than he looks."

Archie absorbed this, then shrugged and poured more syrup on his last pancake.

"You want me to tag along in the tower today, son?" Drake asked Lance. "Wouldn't be any bother."

"If it's all the same, captain, I'd rather have you stationed outside in case we run into trouble. If you wouldn't mind, that is."

Drake nodded gravely, tilting his cap back across his hair and scratching his bristled chin with the mouthpiece of his pipe, which was inlaid with mother-of-pearl that shone in the sunlight streaming through the stern windows. He had not lit a smoke once on the entire voyage; the pipe seemed to be owned on principle only. After polishing the mouthpiece with his napkin, he tucked it into a pocket of his tattered coat, then said, "Well, no matter who's going, the morning's not getting any younger. It'll be noon before you know it if we don't get out there."

Archie took Lance's agreement with this as permission to wolf down his last pancake as fast as possible. Shelly sighed.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

After breakfast, everyone dispersed. Archie and Shelly disappeared into the stern, and Tabitha went to feed Mightyena his last pancake as a treat; this left Maxie alone at the end of the main deck, and he stood against the bulwark, staring out at the island, the wind carrying to him the sound of the waves breaking over the distant sand. The sun had begun to climb, but was still more or less behind him, so that the clear water between here and the shore shone, and his back felt uncomfortably warm beneath his coat.

Try as he might, Maxie could not see the top of the tower. A fog-like cloud overhung it, out of place in the otherwise blue sky, and Maxie could not dislodge the fancy that the strange cloud was like a veil, draped over the structure to conceal whatever powerful object hopefully still rested inside it. 'Zumrud'...Well, it could be anything, really, but he pictured an emerald-green sphere like the blue one he'd managed to hunt down well over a year ago, which had sat nestled in a safe compartment inside his office desk. The thought of it made him scan the rest of the ship, and for a moment he followed Pikachu with his gaze as it bounded over the deck and leaped up onto the railing. Frowning, he looked away again, down at the water rippling against the hull of the ship.

He could not stop thinking. He'd done more than enough of it on the voyage here, alternating between sleeping fitfully and sitting on the edge of his bunk with his head hanging into a bucket; unfortunately the result of all that forced reflection was that he could no longer look Tabitha in the face for very long. He wondered whether it would be worth asking him, whether perhaps he might—oh, but it was so damned _stupid_. Two ancient Pokémon roaming above and beneath Hoenn, violating every law of nature with each step, causing death and destruction without effort, and yet here he was, standing in the sun, thinking about _this_. Stupid, unforgivably so.

A guilty weight settled in Maxie's stomach. He kept his grip on the bulwark with one hand and rested his other elbow on it, so that he could rub his temple, scowling deeply, staring away at the island without seeing it. A man could afford to postpone his own happiness only when he knew what tomorrow would bring...Well, it wasn't as if he even had the right to be happy anymore, did he? And yet he couldn't _not_ think about it, not after yesterday's seasick soul-searching. A fine time to realize it, too. He'd had plenty of time before now to appreciate Tabitha's company, and of course he never had, not really; Tabitha had simply been useful, an especially efficient cog that made all of the other cogs in his artificial world work smoothly. That whole machine was beyond repair now, and yet there was this one piece—this one person—Tabitha was so compulsively steadfast that it was easy, painfully easy, to imagine that it could ever mean—

Stupid.

Maxie sighed and held his face in his hand, leaning forward, giving his eyes a rest from the glare of the sunlight on the water. The fact that he was even considering this annoyed him. Even now, with his pride broken, he'd still found a way to concentrate only on himself, to ignore the bigger problems in the face of a handful of his own miserable feelings. And really—was he suddenly fifteen again, to worry over this in the first place? It wasn't as if he'd ever—

"Maxie?"

When Maxie looked up, taking his head out of his hand, the sunlight seemed blinding. He blinked and winced.

"Are you feeling all right, sir?" Tabitha asked. "After breakfast?"

Maxie realized that his posture must be making him look queasy, as he'd been more or less leaning over the bulwark while holding his head.

"I'm all right, Tabitha. I'm just thinking."

"Worried about today?"

"Well, naturally."

It was not wholly a lie. Maxie stared off at the tower, determinedly avoiding looking at Tabitha, who stood beside him and now existed as a large red blur in his peripheral vision. The deck tilted slightly, making him clutch at the bulwark, though it was more a reflex than anything; the water here hardly disturbed the large ship at all.

"Did you need something in particular, Tabitha?"

"Not really."

Tabitha hesitated. Even out of the corner of his eye, Maxie could tell Tabitha was watching him, trying to decipher his mood.

"Maxie—are you sure you're feeling all right?"

"Yes, Tabitha, I am. What makes you ask?"

"You've just seemed..." He searched for a word. "Distracted. Ever since we left the city."

This comment was enough to make Maxie glance over at last. Tabitha looked concerned, and Maxie felt an odd pang; it was a look he'd seen a hundred times, and yet somehow he'd never appreciated how genuine it was. Of course, it had been easy to not appreciate it, back when he'd had the world at his feet, dozens at his command, and a very clear sense of what his purpose in life was. He'd never bothered to care then, because really, why should he have? There'd been too much else to focus on, too many other plans and priorities to weigh and measure—and now it was all gone, and this was all he had, this one man looking at him with mixed sympathy and hesitation, as if not sure whether he was allowed to be as concerned as he obviously was.

"It's nothing, Tabitha." Maxie forced himself to break eye contact. "Really."

"Maxie, if I did something wrong—"

"You haven't done anything wrong, Tabitha, you know that." A clipped sigh. "It's just this whole situation...It's not as if there isn't plenty to worry about. I apologize if I've been rude."

He stared at the distant tower, hoping the gesture was convincing. Tabitha's attention turned to it, too, and for a minute they both studied it, the sloshing waves and the voice of the wind through the rigging substituting for conversation. Tabitha stuck his hands in his pockets.

"I'm worried too," he admitted at last. "About Groudon and Kyogre."

"The whole region is, I think."

"No, I mean..." Tabitha paused. "Even before we left, I've had this feeling...Like the wait isn't going to last much longer. Monsu Island's going to happen again, only this time they'll mean business, because they've had time to get ready. It's paranoid, I guess, but it's been a week now. The clock is ticking."

Maxie had to count backwards in his head to make sure, and was surprised when Tabitha was correct; the planned negotiation with Team Aqua, the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, had all been exactly seven days ago. It seemed impossible—like it had all happened in the distant past, or to someone else, two other men named Maxie and Tabitha who'd lived in a parallel universe and been unceremoniously torn out of it by those horrific events.

"Maxie?"

"Hm?"

"I think you should consider staying behind today, instead of searching the tower." Before Maxie could interrupt, he continued, "Look, I know you feel like you have to do everything yourself now, but it'll probably be dangerous, and exploring places like this was always my job. I'm used to it. And the fewer people who go, the better."

"No, there's no need for that. It's my responsibility." Maxie rubbed the back of his neck, stinging from the sun just above his collar. "And in any case, I'm curious. I want to know what's up there as much as anyone."

Tabitha seemed like he wanted to say something more, but didn't, instead frowning over at the island as though it were a person he did not trust. Maxie took the opportunity to examine Tabitha's profile.

He'd have to say _something,_ he supposed. This nagging set of thoughts wasn't going to leave him until he did, and maybe if he managed to say some of it, the underlying feeling would vanish, robbed of all its power by being spoken aloud. Such a stupid thing, though. So why announce it? What would it really accomplish? Nothing, absolutely nothing. And yet, when the future was dark, what excuse was there...

"I'm gonna go below for a minute." Tabitha's voice pulled Maxie out of his own mind. "Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm all right. But thank you, Tabitha. As always."

Tabitha hesitated. He half-raised a hand, as if to do something friendly—grip Maxie's shoulder, maybe—and then stopped himself, nodding instead, perhaps sensing Maxie's odd mood. Maxie watched him leave, disappearing down into the stern.

It wasn't a matter of something he needed, Maxie thought resignedly, returning his attention to the island. It was a matter of something he'd come to want, and almost certainly could not have.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"Shelly?"

Her answering "What?" was muffled, as she was in the act of pulling her shirt on. Once she'd tugged it down, Archie repeated himself.

"Shelly, I've been thinking it over...I want you to stay here."

"What do you mean, Archie?" Her long red hair had gotten pinned inside her shirt; she pulled it out and tied it back with her bandana.

"That tower's falling apart," he said. "I don't think it's stable inside. I want you to stay here instead of going up with the rest of us."

He had expected her to argue, but she just smiled and shook her head, picking up a handful of her old clothes and tossing them around him onto the bunk; her shirt got caught on an unlit lamp fixed to the wall. After a moment, with some consternation, Archie realized she thought he was kidding.

"I mean it, Shelly, I don't want you to go. I don't know what's up there, but it isn't safe."

"I can handle it."

"Yeah, well, I can't. Stay on the ship. That's an order."

Immediately he knew he had crossed a line. Shelly stiffened, her chin jutting; it was the same blazing look she had given him on the beach the previous evening.

"You want me to stay here and do nothing, after I've traveled all this way looking for answers, just because it might—_might—_be dangerous?"

"Er..."

"Archie, I've spent years doing things a hell of a lot more dangerous than this," she said. "Deep-diving in caverns, flying helicopters, robbing buildings—"

"All that was different," Archie countered. "That was for the team."

"So is this."

"No it isn't. This is—"

"—the team's responsibility," Shelly interrupted. "Which means it's my responsibility. We started this."

"But..."

Archie faltered, searching for a logical argument, then gave up.

"Shelly, I don't want you to get hurt, that's all there is to it. After what happened..."

"That was completely your fault, Archie."

"Yeah, but—still."

He floundered. Shelly sighed, then reached up and kissed him.

"Archie, I have to do this," she said. "That's all there is to it."

"You don't have to do anything, Shelly. I'm the one that screwed up. Besides, who's the boss—you or me?"

"Who's in charge of field work—you or me?"

They stared each other down. Though Archie was a little taller than Shelly, her demeanor was so much sterner that he looked intimidated, and it took a moment of desperate thought before he remembered another weapon.

"Please?"

He said this with equal parts puzzlement and frustration, as though it were a word in a foreign language he had no idea how to pronounce. Shelly wavered, but stood her ground.

"Archie, there's no point arguing about it," she said, though she had to fight not to smile at how off-balance he looked. "We're both going."

And to prove this, she turned and left the cabin, leaving the door open behind her. Archie stared through it to the narrow hall beyond, then sat down on the edge of the bunk and rubbed the back of his neck.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Half an hour after breakfast, the expedition party had more or less arrived on deck, to the great curiosity of the small crew. Archie and Shelly were being given a walking tour of the finer points of the rigging by Fitzwilliam, and Lance was occupied with trying (futilely, it seemed) to restore life to one of the walkie-talkies he had brought with him from Sootopolis. Drake stood beside his Salamence with his back to the tiller, studying the cloud that hung over the island through a telescope, Salamence sometimes craning its long neck to rest its head on the taffrail, and Maxie and Tabitha had taken a place further back (or rather, forward), just beside the starboard bowlines that ran up from the side of the ship to attach themselves halfway up the mizzenmast; however, neither of them spoke, and Maxie looked ill at ease.

Lance did not manage to resuscitate the walkie-talkie, and so they had only two of them in the end; he kept one and gave the other to Drake, who took off on Salamence for the tower, the plan being that he would stay airborne and follow their progress upwards as they radioed it to him from inside. Before the rest of them departed, Lance gave a pep talk, his audience blinking in the strong sunlight on deck, but it was not a very long (or encouraging) speech.

"We have no idea what's in there," he said, "and barely any idea of what we're looking for in the first place. Everybody stick together and keep your eyes peeled. There's a good chance that this is just a false lead, but," he glanced at Archie, "there's also a good chance that it might not be. I'm letting you all come along on the assumption that none of you is going to do anything stupid. All right?" A pause; no one commented. "Let's go."

Dragonite could not carry five of them at once, and so they rode Gyarados as far as they could, dismounting and splashing across the dead reef when the large Pokémon could take them no further. Archie led the way. He guided them up the beach, keeping to the damp sand, since it was easier to walk on; they had to plod for a good ten minutes before he finally waved toward the line of palms and turned, marching towards the strip of greenery that stood between them and the cliffside. The others followed. When they reached the cliffs, they saw what he had been talking about: there was an ancient stairway hewed into the rock, crumbling and overgrown, but still useable. At the top of it, they all halted.

"This is it," Archie announced, jerking his head over at the base of the massive stone tower fifty feet away. "Door's over on the west side, or was. Just a pile of rocks now."

"We'll see what we can do about that," said Lance, wiping sweat from his forehead; his caped and long-sleeved outfit did not suit the weather.

They trooped over to the tower's western face. "A pile of rocks" described it well; the man-high rubble would have taken a bulldozer to clear away. High above them, Drake called something down; Lance waved up at him to show he'd heard, then released Dragonite from its Pokéball. The six of them arranged themselves into a semicircle, gazing up at the massive stone tower with different mixtures of curiosity and determination. The sun had not quite risen high enough to leave the eastern part of the sky, leaving the group cast in a great swathe of shade; it was like standing in the shadow of a giant sundial.

"How big is this thing?" Tabitha wondered aloud. He could just see Salamence hovering at the base of the cloud that wrapped around the top part of the tower.

"Quarter of a mile," Lance said, "or that was Drake's guess earlier. Guess we'll find out once we start climbing."

"How many stories is that?"

"Couldn't tell you. A hundred, at least."

Dragonite scratched the side of its head, making an odd noise as if talking to itself as it studied the tower; it then tapped its claws against its chin, still rumbling. Lance exchanged looks with it.

"That's what I think too," he said. To the others, he explained, "Doesn't really look like there's a delicate way to do this. We're going to have to cut our way in here and dig through the rubble. If it's too much to get through we can always try breaking in from the air, higher up, but I don't want to poke more holes in this thing than we absolutely have to. If it all falls down we've got no chance at grabbing whatever's inside."

"_If _there's something inside," Maxie muttered darkly, but no one argued.

Lance exchanged another look with Dragonite, and it motioned for all of them to step back out of the way; everyone obeyed. Lance clicked his walkie-talkie on long enough to tell Drake they were heading in, then took another few steps backward, so that Dragonite had a clear shot at the huge pile of scorched rock blocking the entrance to Sky Pillar.

"Dragonite," said Lance loudly, "Use Dragon Claw!"


	24. Chapter 24

The dust blasted so thickly from the face of the tower that it was half a minute before anyone could see. When it cleared, a tall fissure yawned where hundreds of pounds of stone had lay moments before, Dragonite having cut the bulk of it away and shoved it to one side. Still, the crack was not wide enough to squeeze through, at least not comfortably. Lance nodded to Dragonite.

"Almost there, Dragonite. Give it another shot."

Dragonite's claws glowed again, and when it slashed at the rubble, they tore through it like a hot knife through butter. With a grinding noise, Dragonite pulled away a huge chunk of rock, knocking it aside with its thick tail; at last an opening appeared, just barely big enough for Dragonite to duck into, but easily tall enough to accommodate the humans. Lance clicked on the flashlight he'd brought and shone it inside. Instead of opening into a chamber, there seemed to be a passageway that led into the heart of the tower.

"Well, here we are," he announced. "Dragonite, you smell anything alive in there?"

Dragonite peered into the dark depths of the passageway, and everyone tensed—but soon enough it looked over its winged shoulder at Lance and shook its head. Again Lance aimed his flashlight inside.

"That's as good a start as any," he said, and strode inside without so much as a backward glance. The others followed him one by one; Dragonite squeezed itself inside last, stooping to fit inside the passage.

It seemed that the tower was mostly thick stone wall; they had to walk several yards in cramped, dusty darkness before a space finally opened up, which Lance stood in the center of, scouring the walls with his flashlight. The others coughed and blinked in the dust, and Shelly nearly lost her footing for a moment as they spread out to fill the small chamber, because the floor here was rocky and uneven, as though something had been smashed upon it and its pieces left in haste.

"Everybody in?" Lance asked; the tower funneled his voice upward weirdly, and everyone craned their necks back as if on cue, listening to the way Lance's words echoed away above them. Lance trained his flashlight first on the floor, then upwards, towards where there ought to have been—and evidently had once been—a ceiling. Dragonite's bulk blocked out the light from outside that would otherwise have come in through the entrance, and so the only light was Lance's flashlight, shooting straight up like a pillar into the blackness above. He used the beam to follow a thin ring of broken earth that ringed the wall at the level of Dragonite's antennae.

"What happened in here?" Archie wondered aloud, backing against the wall when the chunk of broken rock he'd been standing on shifted. "Knew we broke something in here yesterday morning..."

The act of speaking filled his mouth with dust, and he coughed. Shelly, who had another flashlight, clicked hers on and scanned the rubble on which they stood.

"There were stairs here," she announced; everyone turned to look at where her flashlight's beam shone against a broken few steps left in the far corner. "So I suppose that's what collapsed."

"That, and the ceiling," said Lance. Again he followed with his light the ring around the wall. "It looks like the floors are pretty thin, and every floor is also the ceiling of the room below. See up there, that must be the next room that's still intact...the first few have all collapsed."

Everyone looked up again. Lance's flashlight beam darted across the next unbroken floor, thirty feet above their heads; it was pitted with holes, spiderwebbed with cracks that showed how close it was to crashing down on top of them. One corner of it was missing.

"I guess that's where the stairs would have gone to," Lance mused aloud, staring at the distant hole four feet square. "But if the stairs started in _this _corner here on the ground floor..."

He looked back and forth between the two places.

"So it looks like the stairs go clockwise," he said at last. "They must run up against the wall on every floor—along a different wall on every floor. Guess it's the closest you can get to making a spiral staircase in a square building."

Someone sneezed. Lance said _bless you, _then raised his flashlight, trying to judge the distance up to the next floor. His dark uniform and cape were so speckled with dust that it looked like he had been dredged in a light coating of flour.

"Well," he said, scrutinizing the distant ceiling, "I guess we'll have to fly our way up there. But it also looks like this place isn't very stable. I really think we shouldn't have this many people in here at once."

He looked over to Maxie, Tabitha, Archie, and Shelly, silently making one last argument; he got an immediate, predictable answer from Shelly.

"I'm staying," she said. "I want to know what's up there. And you climbing this by yourself isn't a good idea either."

The other three looked at her as she said this, then back at Lance. Tabitha nodded his agreement. Lance sighed and ran a hand through his spiky, dusty hair.

"All right, then, but let's be careful. I don't know if Drake has a medic on his crew with him, and somebody breaking their leg is the last thing I want to have to deal with right now."

"Looks more like you'd break your neck," Archie said thoughtfully, gazing upwards.

"My point exactly." Lance shook his head, then looked to Dragonite; it seemed huge in the cramped chamber, its antennae brushing where the first ceiling had once been, ten feet above them. "Dragonite, you think you can get us all up there without knocking the place down?"

Dragonite nodded. Its round face was keenly intelligent, and it surveyed the distance before hopping up and spreading its wings. Everyone had to duck to give it room to flap, but with surprising grace and agility it began hovering, and Lance, without preempt, jumped up onto it. For something so bulky, Dragonite moved with great precision. When it reached the ceiling it hovered beneath the hole where the stairs had gone and held Lance up so that he could scramble through it. Below, the others waited with varying degrees of nervousness, instinctively pressed against the walls in case the ceiling fell—but it did not. They could hear Lance radioing Drake, and when he finished he called down, "This level is okay! Stairs are fine. But it looks like there's places where the floor's about to fall through—watch your step!"

One by one, Dragonite ferried the four of them up the tower, and then returned to its Pokéball, too large to fit through the gap. Lance had paused halfway up the next flight of stairs, and the others followed him, first Maxie and Tabitha, and then Archie and Shelly. In addition to Shelly and Lance's flashlights, Tabitha had a lantern from the ship, and the combined lights were more than enough to show the way through the tiny room and up the stairs to the next.

Through the room, up the stairs and to the next, the next set of stairs on their right-hand side, picking their way carefully around cracked parts of the floor—after four or five times of this Maxie said, "Lance? Have you noticed this?"

Everyone halted; Lance looked down at Maxie over his shoulder. Maxie was gesturing to the stairs beneath them, where the light from Tabitha's lantern illuminated the steps.

"Noticed what?" Lance asked him.

"You can't see it well here, it's worn smooth," said Maxie, "but there's a pattern on the floor—on the stairs and leading to them, along all of the floors. I suppose it would have begun on the bottom level."

He was quite right. The next floor they reached did not seem to have any weak points, and the five of them fanned out to see the design carved near the wall that ran from the top of the stairs they had just climbed to the base of the next ones—and continued up them, though the steps themselves were so worn that the carving could only be distinguished in a few places. It looked, by and large, like two parallel lines running up the stairs and along the floor, with a curious triangular pattern between them. They all pondered it in the warm, musty air.

"I guess it's just a decoration," was Shelly's comment. But Maxie was frowning hard at it, and Lance, after noticing this, asked, "Do you have an idea, Maxie?"

Maxie looked to him.

"Yes. I suppose you recall the carving in the Cave of Origin, of the tower that supposedly held the emerald?"

"Yeah..."

"It had something wrapped around it," he said. "A serpent, or a dragon, or some such thing. I thought it was merely decorative; however..."

Everyone studied the floor again. The connection was obvious, now that this mental image had been called up: the triangular pattern could easily be scales, and the lines themselves the boundaries of a serpent's coils, cut into the floor and stairs as if lying there with its tail on the bottom floor and its head on the very topmost floor, somewhere high above them. Lance scratched behind his ear with his free hand.

"That could be it," he admitted. "But let's not get our hopes up until we've searched it top to bottom."

Again they started climbing. Lance stopped to radio Drake every few floors to make sure he and Salamence were following them outside, but sometimes they could hear him even without the radio. On every floor, on the wall opposite the staircase, a thin slit of a window had been cut into the stone; though these had been plugged up with baked earth, the elements had worn some of them open again, so that Drake could call through to them through the thick wall of the tower, and a little fresh air leaked through. They welcomed the latter, since the air grew warmer and more stale the higher they went, while the breezes from outside grew cooler.

After forty flights of stairs, they halted; even Lance was sore. They had not had any close calls with the floors, since the weakest places were visibly cracked and sunken, easily avoided—but neither had they discovered anything whatsoever. At every floor, each one of them hoped for something new: a different style of room, an antechamber, or best of all, a shrine containing _zumrud, _some mysterious and mystic artifact (they all pictured a Jade Orb, because it was probable, and an easy concept to grasp) that they could snatch away from safekeeping. But there was, as yet, nothing. The only alteration between each level of the tower was the way in which the floor was damaged, and the subtle variations in the scales of the snake that had been cut like a guiding path for them on their way up.

"We're all right, just taking a break," Lance was saying to Drake, his dry, dust-filled mouth making his voice sound different. He coughed, swallowed, then added, "Can you tell how far up we are?"

"No, because I haven't been to the top," was the crackly answer. "You want me to fly all the way up and check?"

"No, captain, stay with us. We're heading up again now."

Maxie groaned as he got to his feet from where he had been sitting on the stairs. Tabitha caught him by the elbow when it looked like he might stumble.

"You don't have to keep going, sir," he said—quietly, so that no one else heard. "I'll stay with you."

For a moment, Maxie looked stricken. Then he shook his head and forced himself up the rest of the stairs; Tabitha followed, frowning. Behind them, Archie and Shelly paused—or rather, Archie did, and when Shelly noticed she did too.

"Fucking hell," was Archie's comment, wiping sweat from his forehead. "We could be in here all day."

Shelly sighed her agreement, then said, "It's not like we have a choice, Archie."

"Yeah, well, with our luck," Archie said, "the damn emerald thing's on the very top floor."

They exchanged looks, and kept climbing.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

On and on and up and up, on and on and up and up, until Shelly lost track of time, never mind how many stories they'd climbed. The tower had certainly looked tall from outside, but she had not really grasped what it would be to comb every inch of it by hand, and though she was fit, her legs ached as they kept going as though possessed. On and on and up and up, on and on and up and up, and yet there seemed to be no end to the darkness, the stairs, the cracked floors through which they had each nearly fallen at least once. The distance between them all lengthened as time wore on; Lance was generally a floor ahead of the other four, and now Shelly and Archie were starting to lag, so that half the time they were a floor below Maxie and Tabitha. The climb would have been dizzying had they made it quickly, but none of them had the strength anymore for quickness. On and on and up and up, on and on and up and up...

Numbly, Shelly put her foot on the next step, continuing to climb as the edge of Tabitha's cape disappeared above her, her expression set.

"Shelly?"

She paused halfway up the stairs, then trained her flashlight on the ground at her feet. The dust was so thick that the beam of light looked solid, a long block of white in the otherwise pitch-black room.

"What is it, Archie?"

"Can you hold up for a second? I wanna tell you something."

"Can it wait?"

From the floor above came Tabitha's voice. "Are you two coming?"

There was a pause, and then Shelly called, "Give us a moment!"

More voices from above, though indistinguishable, until Tabitha said clearly, "All right, but we're gonna keep going. Catch up with us."

Chips of the ceiling fell down around them as those above crossed the next room, heading upward, up the next flight of the endless stairs. A flake of ceiling hit Archie on the shoulder; he frowned and flicked it off. Shelly descended to him.

"What is it, Archie?"

Archie tried to brush the dust out of his dark hair, then gave up, instead rubbing the back of his neck.

"Shelly, I've had a lot of time to think lately, and I...Ah, shit, I don't know how to say this right. But yesterday...Finding out you were still alive..."

He broke off, struggling with himself. Shelly did not prompt him, and after a moment, he tried again.

"It's just that this whole time I've been out here, I kept thinking, if I could ask for a miracle, I'd use it to get you back. And now here you are. I know it's not really a miracle, but..." He looked resolute. "Shelly...you're the best woman I've ever had. I mean that. And I know everything's gone to hell and the team's done for now, and you never even wanted there to be an _us, _but...Well, whatever happens next, I don't wanna be apart from you again."

She did not respond. The silence let them hear the echoes of the others, continuing up the never-ending stairs.

"Shelly, look, I know I'm not exactly a knight in shining armor—"

"Archie?"

He cut himself short.

"I can't decide this right now, Archie," she said. "I'm sorry, but there are more important things to worry about." She sighed and passed her free hand over her face. "I know what you're trying to say, but I just can't think about what's next until I know there's going to _be _something next...that the world isn't going to end."

"But that's why I wanna know," Archie pressed. "Shelly, what if this is all the time we've got? What if Kyogre and Groudon rip Hoenn to pieces?"

"Then nothing we do will matter anyway." Shelly's tone hardened. "Archie, I'm sorry, but this is just too trivial to deal with right now."

"Trivial?"

"Yes, Archie. This isn't about you, or me—this is bigger than Team Aqua now. If we find a way to end all of this, then I'll think about—us—but right now, we have to concentrate on getting the job done. Do you understand?"

"Of course I understand, Shelly, I just..." He took a deep breath. "I care about you."

He waited for her to say this sentence back to him, but there was only silence. Shelly raised her flashlight higher, throwing more light over both of their faces, thick dust drifting between them in the musty air. Then she averted her gaze.

"What is it, Shelly?"

"Archie...this isn't the time."

"Why not?" A pause. "Is it because of what I did?"

"Partly." Shelly sighed and rubbed her temple, as though she were getting a headache. "Archie, I'm sorry, but you can't just—just_ do that, _and then show up again out of nowhere and fuck me and expect everything to be exactly like it was before."

"Then what the hell am I supposed to do? Shit, Shelly, you've gotta throw me a bone here. What do you want?"

Shelly exhaled.

"I want to fix this," she said. "I want to fix the mess we made with the team. That's what matters most right now."

"Look, Shelly, I know I screwed it all up—"

"It wasn't just you, Archie. It was me, it was all of us. And Team Magma, too. We were all wrong."

"Yeah, well...I still screwed it up more than anybody else."

"Honestly? Yes, you did. But I don't think things would have turned out much better even if you hadn't done...what you did." She exhaled, swirling the visible dust. "Look, Archie, I just...This whole thing is so much bigger than the two of us that I can't even start to think about where we go from here."

Silence. From somewhere above them came muted voices and knocking sounds as the others traveled upward; more dust and flakes of dried earth fell from the ceiling.

"You don't care, do you?"

He did not sound angry—simply astonished, like a heavy realization had come over him.

"You don't care about me at all..."

"That's not true, Archie."

"Well, then how come you won't—"

"Archie, please. This isn't important right now."

"I'm not important to you?"

"Archie—"

"You're important to _me,"_ he said fiercely. "You're the best damn thing I've got, Shelly. I figured that out, out here."

"Then what would you do if I left?"

There was another long pause. Archie and Shelly squared off, the choking dust swirling between them in the glare from Shelly's flashlight.

"If you left," Archie said, slowly, "I'd get over it. I'd have to. But...I'd be sad for a long time."

Once more, he seemed to expect an answer that never came. After waiting for a few seconds, Archie spoke again.

"Shelly...Are you going to leave?"

"It doesn't matter either way. If we don't find some answers soon..." she glanced around the dark tower, "then nothing I do will matter anymore."

"It matters to me."

"This isn't about you, Archie. Don't you get it? There are things more important right now than how you feel about me."

"I never said it was more—" He cut himself off, looking annoyed. "Shelly, I'm trying to be honest here. You mean a lot to me, and—look, if you don't care, then just go ahead and tell me, all right? If that's how it is..."

"That's not how I feel, Archie, you know that."

"No, I don't know that, because you won't say it."

"Archie, please stop acting like this."

"Acting like what?"

"Like a child."

"I'm not acting like a child," he said—a little petulantly. "I just want to know."

"Archie, I'm not ready to hash this out right now."

"What, you think I can't handle it?" he demanded. "You think I've never had a woman tell me to my face that I'm not good enough?"

"It's not like that." Shelly rubbed her temple again. "Archie, try to understand...It's not you. It's me."

"What does that even mean?" He sounded bewildered. "What is it about you, Shelly? I don't understand."

Again Shelly raised her flashlight higher, casting more light over her own face. To Archie's surprise, her expression did not match her tone of voice. She spoke firmly, almost angrily, but her scarlet eyes shone with something much softer. Archie thought he had never seen her look so vulnerable.

"I'm sorry, Archie," she said finally. "I'm just scared."

She turned away and headed back up the staircase, the dust dancing around her as she passed through it.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"Tabitha?"

Tabitha did not hear him; he was still pacing around the base of the next flight of steps, studying them with his lantern, looking for any more weak points; a small hole had opened in the floor beside them when he'd approached. Maxie coughed from the dust. Above them, he heard Lance crossing the next floor, and then climbing the next flight of agonizingly endless stairs. They were alone. If he was really going to do it, now was the time.

"Tabitha...I'd like a word with you, before we move on."

Tabitha turned back to him at once, looking unnervingly alert, almost formal—awaiting orders. He held up his lantern, frowning at the dust.

"Sir?"

"At ease, Tabitha."

Maxie coughed again, to stall for time, but it bought him only a second. Then, realizing he had no choice, he collected himself and straightened his chin.

"Tabitha, I've...Hm."

His brain froze, and he felt a few seconds drag by like hours as Tabitha waited. Maxie could only see half his face clearly, but knew he must be nonplussed.

"What is it, Maxie?" Tabitha prompted. Maxie shook his head.

"Nothing pressing. I simply wanted to..."

He stopped himself, trying to figure out how to say what had been weighing on his mind.

"I wanted to thank you, Tabitha," he said at last, "for coming on this expedition with me. I know I had originally wanted you to stay behind in Mossdeep, but in retrospect...Well, I've appreciated your company very much."

Tabitha said nothing, and Maxie knew perfectly well why—he had told Tabitha that already, and it was hardly an admission worth building up to. Tabitha shifted his weight, making the lantern light move.

"Is that all?" Tabitha asked.

Maxie tried to find the words he needed; they seemed to escape him just before he could grab them and put them on his tongue.

"Not exactly. It's simply that, with everything that's happened recently, what a lie Team Magma's goal turned out to be...I've come to realize how reliable you are."

"I do my best, sir. I'm field commander."

"No, not—well, yes, it's not as if you're not reliable within the scope of the team, but...What I had meant to say, Tabitha, is that I don't only value you as a subordinate, but also as...well, as a friend, to put it frankly. Though I suppose we aren't—not in the usual sense, perhaps, but I'd still like to believe..."

He trailed off. Tabitha shifted in the gloom, making the lantern light shift again.

"Sir, what are you trying to say?"

_Know what you want, and then do it. _Why did Archie make it sound so infernally easy?

"Well, Tabitha, the truth is that these past few days, I've come to realize that...Well..." He took a deep breath of stale, dusty air. "You're very important to me."

"You're important to me too."

For a moment that lasted an hour, Maxie dwelled on this sentence in astonishment. Then he realized that Tabitha's answer had been immediate, reflexive; he had not really grasped what Maxie meant.

"I don't think you quite understand what I'm getting at, Tabitha." Suddenly Maxie found that instead of being unable to speak, he was unable to stop himself from speaking. "I don't mean it merely in a professional way. I realize this might come as a surprise, but recently I've come to understand—well, not that I didn't understand, I simply never thought about it in quite these terms—but the fact of it is that you're the most faithful man who's ever been a part of my life. And I wish there were another way to say this, but I suppose there isn't, and, well...I find you quite handsome, Tabitha."

"...Uh. Thank you, sir."

Maxie felt his face grow hot. He turned away, rubbing the back of his neck—or rather, the back of the collar of his coat. He wondered if he had ever felt this hopelessly idiotic before.

"I suppose this is hardly the time or place, is it?" he heard himself say, staring intently at the wall. "But I had thought, given the uncertainty of our current circumstances, it would be best to say something, before...Oh, I don't know. Before whatever happens next. Heaven only knows..."

He dropped his hand. His face was still burning, and he cursed himself silently, glad he could not see Tabitha's expression, and half-wishing the cracked floor would fall through and save him from the situation. On the other end, having said it, it suddenly seemed like a much less sound decision.

"Forget I said anything, Tabitha," he said, forcing himself to sound passably confident. "Again, I realize this isn't the best time...though I suppose there would never be a good time, given the fact..."

"Maxie..."

Tabitha's voice sounded strained, and Maxie cursed himself again, wondering how deep of a wedge he had just driven between them. The echoing sound of footsteps rescued him. He looked towards the hole in the corner that led to the lower stairs, through which light had begun to flicker; a moment later, Shelly and Archie appeared, Shelly in the lead.

"Where's Lance?" she asked, stopping and passing the beam of her flashlight between Tabitha and Maxie in turn. Behind her, Archie looked moody. Tabitha answered; Maxie deliberately did not look back at him.

"He went up to the next floor already." The strain had already gone out of Tabitha's voice; either the shock had worn off, or the arrival of Archie and Shelly had forced him to compose himself. "Not sure how far ahead he is."

"_Are you people coming?"_ came a voice from above.

The four of them looked up, but Lance's call had come down from two or three floors ahead. Shelly called back.

"Yeah! We're coming!"

"_Well, hurry up! I found something!"_

The four of them exchanged wide-eyed looks. Then, as quickly as they could manage given their exhaustion, they scrambled up the stairs.

Several floors up, they found Lance. The room he stood in looked exactly like all the others had, except that the ceiling was much higher, and when Archie, Shelly, Maxie, and Tabitha had all staggered up and arranged themselves in a semicircle behind Lance, he released Dragonite from its Pokéball; it did not have to duck to fit in the room.

"What did you find?" Tabitha asked, looking around. Lance jerked his thumb at the ceiling.

"This is it," he said. "Drake's about twenty feet below us—he says it's freezing out there inside that cloud. But look."

Lance pointed his flashlight at a square hole in the ceiling.

"That's got to be the last room up, or maybe the roof of the tower. Drake says we're high enough that it could be. Bet there was a rope ladder or something like that once, and they've sealed up where a trapdoor used to be, see?" The flashlight beam wobbled. "So all we have to do is get up there, and then we're done. If what we want isn't through there, it's back to the drawing board."

For emphasis, he stepped aside and aimed his flashlight at the floor, where the head of the carved dragon they had been following the whole morning lay open-mouthed upon the floor, fangless. And though there was no window slit on this level, everyone became conscious of the loud sound of the wind outside, and of the tower itself groaning and creaking this high up under the strain of standing rigid against the weather. It seemed even to move a little.

Dragonite made a low noise that caused Lance, who had been studying the sealed hole in the ceiling, to give it a sharp look.

"What's wrong, Dragonite?"

Dragonite made another low growling noise that sounded strangely articulate. Lance exchanged looks with it, then trainer and Pokémon both stared at the pitted ceiling.

"What is it?" asked Tabitha. Lance did not look at him as he slowly answered.

"There's something up there right now. Something alive."

Everyone gazed up. They all became acutely conscious of every noise that touched the silence. Were the rhythmic groans and creaks in the stone around them due only to the outside wind against the tower? Or were they from the shifting movements of an unknown creature, lying in wait for intruders at the very top?

Though no one spoke, they all shared the same thought: if something alive was causing the tower to quiver like this, it had to be something very, very big.

Lance clutched his flashlight tighter.

"I'm going up," he said. "With Dragonite. You four stay down here. If things sound like they're getting nasty, run for it."

"Where to, pray tell?" Maxie asked, but in answer, Lance handed Tabitha the walkie-talkie.

"Call Drake," said Lance, "and have him bust you out of here. We know there's nothing below us now."

His tone permitted no argument, and though Shelly's eyes flashed, she only scowled up at the ceiling. Maxie looked wary.

"What do you think is up there?" asked Tabitha.

"I don't know," said Lance, "but apparently something's guarding it, whatever it is. I'm hoping that means we hit the jackpot by coming to this place." He gave the carving on the floor a grim look, and everyone, willingly or unwillingly, strained with all their might at the sounds around them, holding their breaths, trying to pick the grunts or snuffles of some creature out of the noise.

"Whatever it is up there," said Archie suddenly, breaking the silence, "it sounds like it's snoring."

As odd as this observation was, the others realized it was true. The sounds around them were deep, regular—like the steady breathing of something monstrously huge, mingled with the voice of the wind and the stone. Tabitha stifled a cough.

"Well, I'll try not to wake it up," Lance said. "Though that might be unavoidable. Dragonite? You know what to do."

Dragonite rumbled. Its claws glowed, and everyone backed against the nearest wall as it flapped up to the ceiling and carefully but firmly gouged into it, tearing out a chunk of the rock and then swooping down and setting it gently on the ground. The floor creaked, and thin cracks appeared around the slab of rock. Blinding light and cold, wet air rushed into the small room from above; when their eyes adjusted, they could see fog through the hole in the ceiling—the inside of the island's cloud.

"Okay, Dragonite," said Lance, "give me a hand up, and we'll—"

The rest of his sentence was lost when a portion of the ceiling crumbled away. Dragonite dodged it, but when it hit the floor it punched a hole in it, and the extra weight from the slab of ceiling tore away a great chunk of the floor with a mighty crash. Lance leaped to the other side of the room before the place he had been standing vanished, and that half of the floor disappeared in a cloud of dust and a thunderous, grinding crunch. But no one paid attention to that. Something, somewhere above them, was roaring.

Everyone clamped their hands over their ears, but the sound was so powerful that this did not help; the noise seemed to come from everywhere, tearing through their bodies and deepening the fissures in the thin floor beneath their feet. The ceiling cracked, and a shudder passed through the entire tower, sending dust and chips of stone flying as the top of Sky Pillar rocked as if in a high wind. Lance yelled something, but the only way to know this was because his mouth moved. Their skulls rang with the echo of the sound that had ripped through the tower and was now reverberating down its many floors as if through a megaphone.

Suddenly the tower shuddered violently, as if a weight had left it, and everyone but Dragonite was thrown against the wall by the force of the motion. Again Lance yelled something; again no one heard him. The floor fell away beneath them all.


	25. Chapter 25

Archie expected a quick end—the snap of his bones against the next floor down, and then a flash of agony as stone crashed atop him. Instead he fell six feet before hitting nothing with a painful _smack _that knocked the wind from him, and 'hitting nothing' was the only way to describe it; he gasped for breath as he lay facedown on an invisible surface, watching floor after floor of the tower crumble away into the darkness below him with a muffled roar. The dust that exploded up stopped just inches from his face, swirling as though its path had been blocked by a sheet of thick glass.

"_Is everybody okay?"_ yelled Lance.

Archie twisted himself into a sitting position and saw the roof suspended ten feet above them, kept from crushing them all to a pulp by whatever invisible force had also stopped their fall. Dragonite's muzzle contorted with exertion as it strained every fiber of its being, its claws raised, wings outstretched.

"Keep it going, Dragonite!" Lance was barely audible under the sound of falling rock and the memory of the noise that had issued from the roof of the tower. _"Hold it!" _To the others, he yelled, "Dragonite's using Barrier, but it won't hold up for long! We have to make a break for it!"

"_How?"_ came Maxie's voice, but Tabitha had already staggered to his feet, standing on the invisible force field that Dragonite was creating through sheer concentration. He tossed Lance the walkie-talkie, who caught it and flicked it on.

"Drake, get us out of here! Top floor!" He did not even wait for an answer from Drake, instead yelling, "Everybody get up! Get ready to jump!"

"What do you—" Maxie coughed so hard he could not finish the sentence as Tabitha hauled him to his feet. Archie reached down and pulled Shelly up as she extended her hand; when she stood the lantern light glittered off of the blood running down her dusty face.

"Shelly—"

Dragonite yelped and jerked its head. Its tail knocked away the lantern lying on its side on the floor of the invisible Barrier; a tendon showed long and taut beneath the smooth scales of its neck as it fought with all its might to keep many tons of rock from coming down upon them all. Archie felt the invisible hardness beneath his feet give a little, as though it were starting to dissolve. Beside him, Shelly staggered, clutching her forehead. Blood streamed through her fingers.

Something exploded beneath their feet. Shelly would have fallen if Archie had not caught her, and then a blaze of sunlight blinded him from below. Drake had smashed his way through the side of the tower with a Hyper Beam, and now a gaping fissure with Salamence hovering in it yawned just below them, Salamence hissing. Lance leapt onto Dragonite's back.

"Grab them!"

_Them _apparently meant Maxie and Tabitha nearby; Dragonite reached forward and snatched up the pair of them, spreading its wings wide.

"You two _jump!"_

The Barrier broke. Archie and Shelly fell straight onto Salamence's back, and Archie registered only a deafening _boom _of tons of stone starting to fall above them—

—Dragonite and Salamence blasted the thick wall with a combined Hyper Beam—

—a chunk of debris slammed into his shoulder—

—and then fresh air hit him like a cold, wet slap as they burst from the side of the tower into the middle of the cloud that crowned Sky Pillar. His clothes whipped in the wind, and Archie fought to keep hold of both Shelly and Salamence as its curved wings beat the fog beside them; all was white in every direction, but the plummeting feeling in his gut told him they were going down.

Archie slipped and nearly fell sideways. Drake caught him by the back of his shirt, and one-handedly he scrambled further up Salamence's back, Shelly right behind him. The cloud weirdly muffled the crashing, grinding sounds still coming from the tower behind them.

Down they rushed, dizzingly fast, Drake's coat flapping; some miracle kept his captain's hat on. Soon they emerged from the edge of the cloud, into the sun of early afternoon—blinding, after the long darkness of the tower—and Archie gulped lungfuls of fresh air. Below, the island whirled, an alien blur from this angle. Archie felt Shelly wrap an arm around his waist from behind and press her head against his shoulder, her blood warm; his heart beat so frantically he thought it might burst out of his chest before they reached the earth again.

Lower and lower they descended, spiraling away from the tower; Archie looked over his shoulder, expecting the whole structure to have collapsed top to bottom, but the outside seemed intact. It was only the floors inside that had fallen one by one, the weight of the roof bringing down the topmost floor on which they had stood, and every level below crumbling in succession from the impact of all the stories that had been above. He caught sight of Dragonite above them, swooping with Lance atop it, Maxie and Tabitha still clutched in its claws. Lance and Drake called a few words to each other over the wind and the residual noise; the two dragons then flew parallel, so that at they same moment they both passed over the cliffs, over the sparkling sand, and raced out across the water.

The _Silver Stantler _loomed only briefly; they had touched down on the bright main deck almost before Archie realized the ship was at hand. Shelly let go of him and slid off of Salamence. He did the same, landing on his feet somehow, though staggering. Beside them, Dragonite set Maxie and Tabitha on their feet, and Maxie's knees buckled; Tabitha caught him.

"What happened, captain?" asked one of the crewmen who had hurried up; at the same moment Lance asked loudly, "Is everybody in one piece?"

Archie ignored both questions; Shelly had slid to her knees on the deck, clutching her head, and Archie crouched beside her, his eyes still stinging from how blinding the sun seemed.

"Shelly, you're hurt—"

"It's okay, Archie, it's just a scratch—"

But Archie had already torn off his bandana and folded it as tightly as he could. He pressed it to the ugly gash just below her hairline from which stemmed the blood, and Shelly sighed, half-gratefully, half in exasperation. She wiped blood out of her eyes with the knuckles of one hand as Archie mopped her forehead; trickles of it had run all the way down her neck, staining her shirt.

"Hold still..."

"Archie, really, it's fine."

"Your head is bleeding, how is that fine?"

"Head wounds bleed a lot, it's not serious," Shelly said; her voice shook. Archie kept applying pressure to the cut.

"Are you two all right over there?" Lance asked; for a reply he received a simultaneous _yes _from Shelly and _no _from Archie. Lance himself seemed uninjured; he brushed dust off of his uniform furiously, looking tense, while Dragonite flapped away to rinse itself off in the ocean.

After hours in the stuffy darkness of the tower, the wide deck of the ship beneath the low wind and high sun felt like crash-landing on another planet. The dozen crewmen of the _Stantler _had crowded around them, focusing on Drake, who alone looked unperturbed. He procured his pipe from inside a coat pocket.

"Fitzwilliam!" he called; the first mate appeared at his side. "We ran into some trouble. Dig up a bandage for the lady, and for anyone else who needs patching up."

He looked to Maxie and Tabitha when he said this, and Maxie finally managed to pull himself together enough to keep on his feet. When Tabitha let go of him, Maxie edged away.

Fitzwilliam disappeared at once, but another one of the crewmen replaced him, saluting.

"Begging your pardon, captain, but we received a transmission from Sootopolis City while you were away—about an hour ago."

Everyone's attention turned to the crewman at this; it seemed to unnerve him, as he had only addressed Drake.

"Which frequency?" Drake asked. "Was it from Steven?"

"It was on that channel, sir, but it was from Mr. Wallace."

"And what was the message?"

The crewman cleared his throat.

"'Kyogre's here. Groudon's coming.'" When everyone continued to stare at him expectantly, he amended, "Er...That was the whole message, sir. All we could hear of it, anyway. It was garbled."

"Anything besides that come through since?"

"No, sir. The signal's disappeared again. We've been trying everything we can think of, but no one picks up."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The shock of their narrow escape wore off over the next quarter of an hour, as the rattled explorers recovered themselves and what cuts and scrapes they had received were seen to, while the curious crew dispersed on Drake's orders. Once they had all settled, Drake polished the bowl of his pipe against his dusty coat sleeve and addressed Lance.

"So, I'm guessing all that hullabaloo means you found what you were searching for up there, eh? Let's have a look, then. I'm curious."

Lance made an odd, stiff gesture, as though he wanted to swat at the air in frustration, but had stopped himself. A muscle showed in his jaw as he shook his head.

"Dead end," he said, with uncharacteristic bitterness. "At least, I hope it was."

"You hope?"

"Well, the alternative is that the artifact we were after was up on the roof, and now it's buried under more rubble than we can deal with." He waved his hand in the general direction of the tower, not even looking to it. _"Something_ was up there—it brought the place down around us. Might have been a trap, or we might have just disturbed something that happened to be hanging out up there...either way, anything valuable that might have been at the top of the tower has been smashed to pieces."

"I think it was a Pokémon up there," said Drake. "Something screamed to high heaven just before you called, and Salamence was acting up, too. Couldn't see it through the cloud, but I thought something big up and flew away right after the noise. Felt it go."

Lance rubbed the back of his neck, his brow furrowed.

"Well, whatever it was is gone now, and we're lucky it didn't notice us. But now we're backed into a corner." He exhaled. "I've got a few ideas about what to do next and I don't like any of them."

"What's on your mind?"

Lance ticked them off on his fingers.

"One, stay here and keep digging through the rubble, on the assumption this is the place we need to be and the thing we want—whatever it is—is still here. Two, throw a dart at the map and go off looking for the next possible location of the Throne of Heaven. Or three—and I don't like the thought of it—turn around and march back to Sootopolis City to find out what's going on. It sounds like there's more trouble brewing than we bargained for, if Groudon's headed there too."

"Rock and a hard place," Drake said gravely, scratching his cheek with the mouthpiece of his pipe. Lance turned to him.

"Captain, I'm going to need some time to think this over, but I want your crew to be ready in case I decide it's best to—"

"We should take a vote."

Lance and Drake turned. Shelly had spoken, and Lance's gaze darted between his four tagalongs before he said, "Sorry. I'm used to working alone."

"Well, you're not working alone," Shelly reminded him, one hand clapped to her bandaged forehead, "and if Groudon's going to show up too, then I vote we go back to Sootopolis. There's nothing for us here anymore, and it sounds like something's going to happen back there—something big. If Groudon and Kyogre meet up—"

"But that is precisely why we left," Maxie said; Archie and Shelly looked over at him, but he addressed his argument to Lance. "If the pair of them cross paths again, they'll fight until one of them vanquishes the other. It would be senseless to hurry there and throw ourselves into a dangerous situation beyond our control. The only thing for it is to keep looking for the Throne of Heaven."

"Says who?" Archie retorted. "Shelly's right, something's going down in Sootopolis. That's where the action is, so that's where we should be."

"Where _you _would like to be, perhaps. The rest of us have only just managed—"

"All of you," said Lance loudly, cutting across Maxie, "don't start arguing. That's the last thing I want to listen to right now." He pinched the bridge of his nose, frowning hard, then dropped his hand and said, "Well, we can rule out staying here. Even if what we're looking for _was _on the roof of the tower, it's under so much rubble now that it would take us weeks to get to it—assuming it hasn't been destroyed, or stolen before we got here, or who knows what else. So that's one option down. All we have to decide now is whether to keep on looking for other places where the Throne of Heaven might be, or go back to Sootopolis City and help the others."

"And do what?" Maxie asked. "Supposing we returned there—what possible service could we render?"

"_We _couldn't do anything," said Lance sharply, "but I'd be able to give Wallace and the others a hand. It would be one thing if it was just another storm—people were prepared for that—but if Groudon's really going there, too..." He set his jaw, imagining this, then said, "If Monsu Island happens again in the middle of Sootopolis, it could easily wipe out the entire city."

"We'd do better to—" Maxie began, but Lance waved an arm to cut him off. Archie took advantage of this.

"There's no point going off and looking right now," he said. "We don't even know what the hell we're searching for in the first place, and we aren't gonna do anybody any favors by keeping this up if there's serious shit happening somewhere else. Besides, I wanna see how things are out there."

Lance looked between them all again, then turned back to Drake.

"Captain? We're at your mercy. What's your vote?"

"I abstain," said Drake at once, waving his pipe dismissively. "You know your business best. You want to stay, then we'll stay; you want to go somewhere, my crew and I will take you. Simple as that."

Lance started to pace the deck, his cape exuding dust with every step, though in the sunlight it was hard to see; the others watched him. After a bit, he stopped short.

"Captain?"

"Yeah?"

"Supposing we did go back to Sootopolis City..."

"Don't tell me," said Maxie, "that you're seriously considering returning to Sootopolis? After all of the trouble we took to leave?"

"As a matter of fact," said Lance, "I wish I didn't want to go back. We have a goal and information to get us to it, and in the long run, the most useful thing we could do is keep up our search. But," he looked over at Archie and Shelly, "on the other hand, there's no guarantee we'll find what we're looking for this year, much less this week. And it sounds like Sootopolis needs help more than anybody realized. If Groudon and Kyogre both—"

"But that's absurd," Maxie argued. "We've accomplished nothing. We've only searched one location, and we've found nothing of any value whatsoever."

"Pi-_ka!"_

Everyone started, looking down. Unnoticed by any of them, Pikachu had joined their circle of conversation, and now it said something indignant up at Maxie that made Archie laugh.

"What, so we don't count?" Archie translated. Lance looked between Archie and Pikachu.

"That's a fair point," he admitted. "We've got the two Orbs back—I think—and that's worth something."

He turned around and faced the island again, gazing at the base of the distant tower as he spoke.

"I'm not going to lie—I thought this was the place. This tower fit the bill, and the two of you being here was icing on the cake." He raised his chin, his gaze aiming to where the top of the tower should be, lost to sight in the cloud. "But we've done what we could here. And I can't be the one to let that many more people and Pokémon die all at once."

"So we're going back?" Shelly asked. Lance did not turn around.

"Yes. That's what my gut tells me."

"That doesn't make any sense," said Tabitha; he had not yet spoken, and so Lance glanced over his caped shoulder at him. "What was the point of leaving on this search if we're just going to go right back to Sootopolis after one failure?"

Evidently this was the exact argument Lance was having with himself; he grimaced and shook his head, turning away again. Below them, Pikachu bounded forward and stood at Lance's booted feet, gazing up at him, and then said a few syllables. Lance seemed to understand.

"We'll get you back to Ash when we can, Pikachu," he told it. "But I don't know when that will be. We've got bigger fish to fry."

"So we're going?" Archie asked. Lance passed a hand through his disheveled hair.

"Yes. Captain, how soon can we leave?"

"As soon as we plot a course and get her unmoored. Wind's in our favor, at least for the moment."

"All right, good. Make it happen."

The ensuing bustle of Pokémon and crewmen was lost on Archie, Shelly, Maxie, and Tabitha, who each had something of more consequence to worry about. Archie led Shelly to the hold, worrying over her forehead; Maxie watched the crew for a minute before Tabitha's voice at his shoulder startled him.

"Maxie? Sir."

He turned away, keeping his back to Tabitha, and said, with what would have been perfect composure, "Tabitha—I don't feel well. Please leave me be."

Tabitha's gloved hand closed around his wrist. Maxie jerked his arm away, as though the touch had burned him.

"I'm going to my cabin," he said, without looking over his shoulder. "I'll speak with you later."

He hurried away, still not looking back, leaving Tabitha suddenly alone. Mightyena trotted up to him, and looked between Tabitha and Maxie as the latter headed away towards the belly of the ship, flicking its ears and whining once to ask what was the matter. Tabitha made as if to follow Maxie, then stopped himself, and when he knelt to scratch Mightyena's head he looked preoccupied.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"Does it hurt?"

"No." Shelly forced herself not to press a palm to the cut on her forehead, exposed now that Archie had removed the makeshift bandage. "Stings a little, that's all."

"It looks nasty."

"It's fine." But she winced when Archie gently pressed a piece of fresh gauze to the spot.

They were both sitting on the edge of the bunk in her cabin, a med kit lying open on the floor. Archie smoothed the edges of the new bandage with his thumb to make sure it stayed put before saying, "There. You sure it doesn't hurt?"

"Not enough to bother about." She pressed the gauze down flat against her head, making a few drops of blood stain the white cotton. "We're lucky this is the worst that happened. We all nearly died up there for nothing."

Archie winced and rubbed his shoulder blade; Shelly noticed.

"Did you get hurt, Archie?"

"Nah, not really...Rock hit me. Just a bruise."

He said this nonchalantly, but Shelly knew him well enough to sense that he wanted her to pay attention to him, and stifled a sigh as she said, "Let me take a look at it."

"It's nothing."

"There's some ointment in here for bruises." She nudged the open first aid kit on the floor with her foot, then bent down and fished out the tube, one hand on her forehead to keep her bandage steady. "We might as well use it if we've got it. Take your shirt off."

He had done this before she even asked, so that when she straightened up she could see a horrible-looking purple blotch covering his left shoulder blade, rimmed with greens and yellows.

"Does it look bad?" he asked her from over his shoulder.

"It looks awful. Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"It doesn't hurt much."

He stifled a yelp—Shelly had called his bluff by pressing two fingers against the massive bruise.

"What did you do that for?" he demanded, half-twisting around. Shelly rolled her eyes and squeezed ointment onto her fingers.

"Just turn around and hold still."

He obeyed, and Shelly slathered the strange-smelling yellow paste over his skin, being careful not to use more pressure than was necessary. The silence did not last long.

"Shelly?"

"Yes?"

"About what I said earlier...up in the tower..."

She stopped applying the ointment. Archie looked over his shoulder at her, but she avoided his eye.

"Archie, I don't want to talk about this."

"I want to." He studied her. "Shelly, what are you afraid of? I told you I was sorry, I'll do whatever you want to prove it."

Instead of replying, Shelly resumed tending his shoulder, as if this were a way to assert control over a conversation she did not want to have. Again Archie broke the silence.

"Shelly, you're something special. I mean it."

"Let me guess." She grimaced and applied another dollop of oily paste to his back, smoothing it out with the tips of her fingers. "You've never felt this way about anyone else before?"

"No, I have. It's just never worked out before. And I've never wanted it to this bad." He paused. "I mean...Shit, Shelly. I missed you so damn much out here. And I'm never going to find anybody else who'll put up with me the way you do."

"Who says I put up with you?"

He twisted around and found her sighing, aware of her own hypocrisy: she had the tube of ointment in one hand, and the fingers of the other were covered in yellow ooze.

"Archie, don't—oh, damn it, don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Make that pathetic face." She fought a smile as she hit the bottom of the container with her palm to force more paste out. "You aren't supposed to do things like that."

"What are you talking about?"

"Look at you." Shelly gestured to him with the tube. "We've let all hell loose on Hoenn and all of a sudden you want to talk about feelings. Who _are_ you?"

"I'm the boss," said Archie reflexively—and then, a bit indignantly, "Is that all I am to you, Shelly? The boss? A good fuck?"

"Archie, don't start this again."

"Yeah, well, how hard is it to say—"

She silenced him with a kiss, but when they broke apart he still looked a little sullen. Shelly sighed in exasperation.

"What is it?"

"Come on, Shelly, it's three words."

"Talk is cheap. And it won't solve any of our problems."

"This isn't about solving problems, this is about...Look, Shelly: if I don't have you, then I don't have anything. That's all there is to it."

He said this with conviction, as though it had always been the case, and Shelly wanted to laugh; in a way, this was familiar. When things changed, Archie immediately forgot the old situation and plowed headlong into the new without a backward glance, ignoring the consequences and expecting everyone else to do the same. He had never had a tantrum when one of their numerous schemes turned out to be a dead end; instead he threw all of his energy into hatching the next plan, tossing the failure to the wind (and leaving the cleaning up to her and Matt). Shelly poked him.

"Archie...Stop pouting."

"I'm not pouting."

He was pouting, and it was so strange to see that she could not help but smile. Shelly tapped him on the arm with her knuckles, making him look over at her; she reached out with the hand still coated in ointment and ran her fingers along his jaw, smearing the paste over the bruise she had given him the night before, on the beach. In response, he tucked a lock of her long red hair behind her ear. Groaning in defeat, Shelly leaned against his other shoulder, half-smiling, and wiped her hands with a cloth from the first aid kit. He scratched her back.

"We're a good team," he said with satisfaction. Shelly tucked her legs underneath her and curled up on the bed, pressing herself to Archie, burying her face in his upper arm; he put that arm around her and squeezed her before rubbing her shoulder. "Shelly?"

"Hm?"

"Will you ever tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"Give me a straight answer. About this."

He squeezed her tighter. She sighed.

"I suppose I'll have to."

"When?"

Shelly closed her eyes; a dozen memories came to her. Monsu Island, and the flooded streets of Mossdeep, dark and silent under a fall of ash. Dozing fitfully on the floor of the Space Center, and the pale faces of those wandering it like phantoms. The Cave of Origin, vast and dark and eerie and ancient, the light of her lantern shining upon rows and rows of murals inside the abandoned shrine. Swimming countless laps in the pool at the Sootopolis Gym, and waiting—walking—the house she'd tried to forget. Waiting yet more, the news reports tense with the gradual realization that the horror had only just begun. Matt dead, the others dead, thousands of people and Pokémon dead...

"When all of this is over someday," she said. She sounded tired. "If we're both still around."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

At four o'clock they pulled away from the island. The _Stantler _had moored right alongside the reef, since it was the only place shallow enough to do so, and consequently the business of weighing anchor and easing away took more time and finesse than usual. Drake himself paced the main deck, his Salamence following behind, the two of them watching the rigging as the entirety of the shorthanded crew manned the ropes and set the sails. Meanwhile, Lance had volunteered the services of Gyarados, and the scarlet sea serpent nudged the _Stantler's_ hull away from the dangerous reef anytime it drifted close, slithering back and forth in the water along the keel. When at last the sails had caught enough wind to move them away in earnest, Gyarados returned to Lance's Pokéball, and Lance himself headed to the navigation room in the forecastle deck, to try and make contact with Sootopolis.

Archie and Shelly had put in an appearance to watch the proceedings, but as soon as the ship was under way, they disappeared again, Archie with one last look at the island off of the port bow. It was Pikachu who watched it recede, springing up onto the bulwark and sitting there with a thoughtful expression; as the _Stantler _changed tack it scampered a quarter of the way around the bulwark to perch on the high taffrail and study the unassuming bit of land as it inched further and further away behind them. When the island had all but vanished, Pikachu leaped down and scurried across the quarterdeck, to where some of the crewmen's Pokémon were waiting.

By sunset, hours later, the _Silver Stantler_ was alone upon the sea. She had spotted no other vessel, and now they had finally left behind a scattering of islands that had dotted the ocean on either side as they swept forward, the sea as smooth as could be wished given the seasonal currents. Though empty, the _Stantler _was still a big ship, and she sailed best when running right before the wind; unfortunately this was not possible, since it did not precisely favor their northeasterly course. Drake kept her at a close reach, sometimes working to windward if the air changed enough to make it expedient, but it was slower going than he had hoped. He told Lance as much as night fell and Pikachu helped a crewman light the stern lamps.

"We'll get there tomorrow, but at this rate it might not be till evening. And I have a feeling that the closer we get, the funnier the weather's going to go."

Lance nodded, pacing.

"And," Drake continued, "I'll tell you up front that I can't take you into the storm itself. Can't ask that of my crew. But we'll let you off as close to it as we can get."

"I just hope my Pokémon can make it in safely," Lance answered, watching the stars emerge. "They need to have strength left to fight once we reach the city."

"Well, there's no sense making plans yet; even on a good day the weather's a hard thing to predict. Best to stop worrying and keep your head down until the morning. Sleep on it and see what seems best tomorrow."

Lance continued pacing. A few points off the port bow, the sun teasingly kissed the horizon, and Lance paused to study it before saying, with a shade of bitterness, "I don't know what to do, captain."

Drake had been chewing thoughtfully on the end of his pipe, but took it out of his mouth to speak more clearly.

"In what sense, son?"

Lance counted the stars in the emerging constellation above him before answering.

"In the sense," he said, "that I've never trained for a situation like this. Something too big to handle without backup when it's impossible to bring backup in." He sighed in frustration, rubbing his jaw, which was beginning to be stubbled. "I don't know, captain. I've got these people with me—" (a jerk of the head in the general direction of the stern), "—and I'm used to just..." He frowned. "Just getting the debriefing and flying in and tearing up the place by myself. Not pacing here with half-answers and blind danger every which way I turn, and dragging other people into it with me."

"Go on home, then," was Drake's half-sarcastic advice. "This isn't your region. Leave it to someone else."

"I can't," said Lance, in a tone of voice that said he legally could, but would never consider it. The stars winked overhead in the purple sky. "I can't do that, captain. This is my job. I just...I was stupid. I pinned too much on Sky Pillar—I really thought that was going to be the answer to all our problems. It seemed to fit. It's never that easy, but I still wanted to believe..."

"Nothing wrong with having faith, son." Drake tucked his pipe back into his coat and took a few paces forward, so that they were side-by-side, staring off of the port bow at the sea that stretched all the way to the dark horizon. "And there's nothing wrong with listening to your instincts, either. If I had another ship for every time I've won a battle—or saved my hide—by following my gut instead of sticking to the plan, they'd call me Grand Admiral Drake."

"HQ doesn't like that excuse, though," Lance admitted. "They'd have my head if they knew I was going back to help Sootopolis instead of heading west. Wouldn't be the first time I've gotten an earful for playing the hero."

"That what the government folks call actually getting off your rear and doing some good?" Drake asked. Lance could not suppress a snort, and Drake continued, "We'll be back outside Sootopolis this time tomorrow, for better or worse. If we get close and it looks too nasty, you can always go back to Plan A."

"I don't think I can."

"Go back to Plan A?"

"Not if it means losing that whole city."

Lance shook his head at himself; Drake studied the horizon as the water rippled around the ship. The sun had gone. Aside from the stars, the only light in the world now came from the lanterns hanging across the _Stantler, _glowing warmly in the darkness; it made her look like a living creature gliding through the land of the dead, her keel softly parting the black water.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Maxie lay on his bunk, staring at the ceiling, his thoughts running in the same pointless circles as they had been since the tower had come down around their ears. A dead end...Well, that was expected, really, and he had run into more of those than he could remember in his years-long quest for Groudon. That didn't trouble him as much as it should. What _did _trouble him...

He scowled at the wooden planks above him. He had pleaded seasickness an hour ago, just to have food sent to his cabin instead of dining with everyone else; it frustrated him that he was such a coward. And cowardice really was the only way to describe it. Sooner or later, he would have to smooth things over with Tabitha, but instead he had spent the past few hours hiding in here, being an idiot. Tabitha had been tactful enough not to come demand an explanation, but that put the burden of initiating the inevitable conversation on Maxie, and the longer he waited, the less excuse he had to put it off. Really, it would be better to just swallow his pride and get the unpleasant business over with. At least that way he might be able to sleep later.

The room swayed gently. Maxie's stomach lurched, but the ship had nothing to do with it, and with a sigh he sat up and swung himself off of the bunk.

Thankfully no one was in the narrow hall when Maxie poked his head out. He closed his cabin door as quietly as he could and then moved down the stern, stopping in front of one of the handful of other doors and studying its polished surface. After staring at it bleakly, he rapped his knuckles against the wood.

"What is it?" came a muffled voice.

"Tabitha, may I come in?"

When he received an affirmative answer, Maxie grimaced at the door before pushing it open, finding Tabitha sitting at the foot of his bunk with his hood thrown back, his uniform still dusty from the adventure in the tower. An oil lamp fixed to the wall by the head of the bed threw a flickering light across him, glinting when it reflected off of the glass of the porthole against the adjacent wall. Maxie closed the door behind himself, making the cabin feel suddenly cramped.

Tabitha said nothing. His expression was odd: a little surprised, certainly, and even wary, but if he felt any outright anger he was polite enough to keep it out of sight. Maybe this wouldn't be as difficult as he'd feared.

"May I sit?" Maxie tried.

Tabitha nodded. Maxie made as if to sit right beside him, then thought better of it and moved down a few feet, instead setting himself at the head of the bed next to the far wall, resting the heels of his hands on the edge of the wooden bunk frame. He brushed his coat off—perfunctorily, out of habit—and looked over at Tabitha, who was waiting for him to speak.

"I came to apologize," Maxie said simply.

Tabitha did not ask for any clarification. Maxie tried to cobble together enough dignity to sound sure of himself when he continued.

"Tabitha, I'm sorry for what I said earlier today, inside the tower. I was forward...inappropriately so. I apologize." He paused. "It's just that...Well, I've been alone for a long time now. I know that's no excuse, of course, but I hope you can forgive me."

"Why have you been alone?"

Tabitha sounded nonplussed, as though he could not conceive of how someone he regarded highly could possibly have that problem. Maxie studied the grain of the wooden floorboards in the warm light from the lamp over his head, his shoulders slumping.

"Oh, not _literally_ alone," he found himself saying. "Occasionally...Well, you understand, one has certain...But I had meant nothing meaningful, or substantive_._ It's not as if I've been in a position to commit to anything, after all. And I was focused on other things. Sometimes I thought, perhaps after we'd achieved our goals, I might begin to—but of course all of that's nothing, the mission was a delusion from the very start, so really...I suppose I've wasted..."

He did not finish the sentence. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tabitha shift, but kept his own gaze firmly fixed on a point to the right of his foot. It was a little easier to talk about this now than it had been in the afternoon.

"One shouldn't make assumptions," he said wearily. "About what others might want. It seems to be a tendency of mine, actually..." He passed a hand over his face. "Please forgive me, Tabitha."

"It's fine."

Maxie glanced over at him. Tabitha was not quite making eye contact, and seemed almost embarrassed; it was a rare sight.

"Tabitha, please don't be afraid to be honest with me," said Maxie. "I don't want you to simply brush this off for my sake. If I've made you uncomfortable, then tell me as much; I won't be offended."

"I mean it, Maxie...It's fine."

But Tabitha still did not meet his eye. Maxie rubbed at the collar of his coat with one hand, looking away.

"I should have kept it to myself," he admitted. He ran a hand through his hair. "And I know it must have sounded bizarre, given the situation. But as I've already ruined everything else in my life, I simply thought I'd make a clean job of it, in a sense. You're the last."

"The last what?"

"The last thing I have left to lose. Well, you and my coat. And I don't suppose that will hold out much longer."

He smiled bitterly and plucked at a patch of tangled thread near his shoulder, looking up to watch the candle quiver inside the lamp as he continued talking. Speaking was not a relief, exactly, but it gave him something constructive to do.

"All of this, everything that's been happening, realizing how wrong I've been all this time...I just feel so idiotic. Blind, stupid...whatever the best word is. I'd thought about all of this for so long, I had so many plans and I was so unflappably convinced that I knew _exactly_ what I was doing all these years, and then in one day it's all gone. Just like that. Horrifically. I put all of my faith in myself and my ideas, I gave up so _much_ in order to try and do this, and to have everything end that way, so suddenly, I simply couldn't..."

He sighed and rubbed the side of his neck, still staring up at the lamp, feeling a knot in his stomach assert itself. The tiny flame inside the lamp sputtered mournfully.

"I have nothing anymore, Tabitha. Nothing, absolutely nothing—not even any confidence left in myself. Nothing, except for you. And I know that's little to do with who I am; you're a consummate professional and you always have been. But everything I had and everything I hoped for has vanished, and yet, despite it all, you've never..."

He looked down at the floor again. An imprint of the little flame remained on his vision for a few seconds.

"Oh, Tabitha. It sounds silly, but you're still here—just the way you've always been, as if none of this has even put a dent in you. And you don't despise me for wasting your time or putting you through it all for nothing, and you've never—at least, I've never felt that you judged me. It's been a good long while since I've had an equal—a friend—and these past few days you've been that, in your own way. I'm grateful.

"I suppose that's all I'm trying to say, Tabitha. I'm grateful to you, for being as strong as you are and for being my shadow. And for looking out for me the way you do—beyond the call of duty." A stiff sigh. "But it's not your job to babysit me, as I've said before. Just because I happen wake up one day and realize that you're the only person alive who knows how to make me laugh, or who cares whether or not I'm happy, and that you'd follow me to the ends of the earth if I asked—all of that isn't sufficient excuse to hope that you might in some way be inclined to..."

It all sounded so stupid that he bowed his head and rubbed his face with both hands.

"Wishful thinking, of course. Stress. Situational insanity. And so I go off and say some outrageous thing out of nowhere, just because I've come to appreciate how fortunate I am to have you, and it was wildly inappropriate and I'm sorry. So I understand fully, Tabitha, if you'd like to keep some distance between us from now on. I realize I've put you in an awkward position, and it would have been better if I'd never said a word."

There was a pause.

"So...you didn't mean it?"

"Hm? Mean what?"

"Everything you said today, in the tower. You don't really think I'm—"

"Handsome?" Maxie finished, and then laughed weakly. "Oh—don't pay that any heed, Tabitha. I'm sorry I said it, like everything else." He realized what he'd implied and added, "Not to say that you aren't—really you _are_ very—but you don't need me to tell you, of course. I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times from a thousand people."

They regarded each other, Tabitha with a nonplussed look, his brow furrowed. Maxie stifled another sigh. Tabitha was effortlessly handsome, and that was a little painful to see now. Well, it was not as if he'd never known it, but there was a difference between knowing it as one more fact in his well-ordered world, and knowing it by gazing at him and feeling the knot in his own stomach tighten so hard that he felt ill. He looked away and rubbed the bridge of his nose, acutely aware of his own receding hairline, of the lines around his mouth.

"Maxie?"

Maxie glanced back up. Tabitha had a curious expression, at once reserved and yet intense, as if he wanted very much to say something and didn't know how; Maxie had seen that look on him before. The dining room, he thought blankly, at Juan's house.

"Maxie, look—I'm not ever going to walk out on you. All right? I'm staying until this is finished."

Maxie closed his eyes and leaned his head to the side, resting it against the cabin wall.

"Tabitha, Team Magma _is_ finished. You would have done better to follow Courtney's example and leave it all behind while you had the chance. I appreciate your devotion, but you must understand: there's nothing left for you to be devoted to. It's over."

"You're still here."

Maxie laughed. It was an odd sound—short and strained, brimming with self-loathing.

"Tabitha, why don't you understand? I'm not worth anything. I never was. My vision for the future...Everything we strove for...It was a lie all along. All of it. And now innocent people are suffering the consequences of my arrogance. I know you don't like me saying it, but I'm a fool, and you're at least half a fool to follow me still, if I'm really the main reason that you're here."

He let himself look directly at Tabitha for a few seconds, meeting his gaze, and had to choke back another laugh. Surely Tabitha ought to have _some _measure of common sense buried away somewhere—some part of him had to despise his superior's sudden weakness—but Tabitha was Tabitha and so of course there was nothing, not a trace of scorn or pity in his eyes, just that sort of quiet intensity.

His eyes were dark, Maxie noted. Richly so. How could it be that he'd never paid any attention to that before? Like walking by a painting every morning and acknowledging its beauty only with a cursory glance, never once stopping to admire the use of color, the individual brush strokes. He'd never cared; there were always bigger things to think about...

"Maxie, can I tell you something?"

"Hm?" Maxie blinked. "Of course, Tabitha. You hardly have to ask."

Well, this had to be it. A lecture—he'd be gentle about it, naturally, but it would be a lecture—and Maxie began trying to piece together his next set of apologies as Tabitha shifted. To his surprise, however, Tabitha looked as if he were gathering his courage. It was strange. Not like him at all.

"Maxie, the thing is..."

Tabitha took a deep breath, then frowned hard and looked away, staring resolutely at the cabin floor.

"Ever since Monsu Island," he said slowly, as if weighing every word, "I keep having this nightmare that it was you who bonded with the Red Orb, instead of Archie. You never try to drown the world, though. You just...scream, and scream, like it hurts...like you're dying. And then the Orb sort of...burns you up, from the inside out, and you turn into dust. I want to help you, but I can't; I can't ever do anything except stand there and watch it happen, and then all of a sudden you're just gone. There's nothing left of you but ashes. I can't even bury you. And I'm left there by myself, and I never found a reason to tell you how much you—"

He clamped his jaw shut and took a deep breath through his nose; it took him a moment to speak again.

"I know it's unprofessional of me," he continued, "but you're important to me, Maxie. You're the most important thing to me. And I never wanted to tell you because I didn't want you to think less of me, and it didn't make a difference anyway. We were going to have Groudon and everything was going to go our way, and I was always going to be there with you, helping you, forever. I never had to think about what I would do if it all fell through. But now, with all of this happening..."

He sounded clumsy, Maxie thought vaguely. He'd always been a bit clumsy—awkward, even—when forced to speak frankly about himself, in contrast to the sharp and straightforward way he delivered reports. He remembered Courtney mocking him for it, on one of the rare occasions that the three of them had sat around having small talk.

"I thought if you knew how I felt, you might want to replace me, so I never let myself think about it much. And when I did, I never kidded myself that I'd be good enough for you anyway. But today, when you said all of that...all of a sudden it was like, maybe you'd noticed..."

He trailed off, and after some kind of inner struggle, relented and heaved a sigh.

"The team's gone, Maxie," he said finally, "and I can live with that. I can go be nobody again. But I've never met another man like you, and I know I never will."

The silence stretched on immeasurably: seconds or minutes or days, maybe, inside the empty cabin with that one little flame to light it, the sea just outside beating steadily against the porthole. Tabitha tried to flatten out an unruly patch of hair on the back of his head, still looking a little embarrassed; Maxie studied his profile in the lamplight.

He had not seen Tabitha this self-conscious in years—not since his earliest days as an admin, when he was still finding his footing, still adjusting to the honor of reporting directly to the boss and the challenge of disciplining his former teammates. It was bizarre to see that nervousness again after so long, as if someone had come and replaced terse, efficient Tabitha with a stranger who shared his looks. And yet...

And yet, it made sense. Better than anything, it explained why, after the chaos and carnage and utter failure of the past week, this otherwise sensible young man was still here, by his side, obeying him.

"I didn't realize you were interested in men," Maxie said at last. "Though granted, I never once wondered, until recently..."

"Well...I guess one shouldn't make assumptions. About what others might want." He paused. "Courtney never mentioned it?"

Maxie fought back another laugh. Some of the tension inside of him eased, and he shook his head, running a hand through his hair again.

"No, she...Though again, I never once thought to ask. It wasn't a concern. I just assumed..." He shook his head at himself. "But then, why...Why have you never said anything to me, Tabitha? Never once..."

"It's not my place, sir."

Tabitha ruffled his hair, frowning.

"It wasn't always like this," he said. "And I didn't really notice it changing. I always admired you, and you always respected me, and eventually..." He reflected. "I just...woke up one day, a long time ago, and decided that I had to protect you. Because that was the best I could do."

Another silence. Tabitha ruffled his unruly hair again, then gave it up as a lost cause and sighed, slumping forward, as if having said all of this had deflated him. Maxie rubbed the side of his fist across his mouth, frowning, wondering which of them would find something else to say first. He did not think it would be him; his mind was oddly blank, unless one somehow counted that knot in his stomach (a little less weighty now, but not gone) as a thought. It was like all the things he might have wanted to say had gotten hopelessly tangled together, and he no longer had the wherewithal to pull out any one thread in particular.

"I'm sorry, sir," said Tabitha finally. "I know it's not professional of me."

He still sounded uncomfortable, and Maxie did not have to guess why. Tabitha liked rules, order, keeping everything in its place—and all of this was so fantastically out of place. It was as if everything about him that Maxie had ever known had come from inside some box labeled _Admin,_ and now other boxes that Maxie had never been allowed to see had fallen down and spilled their contents everywhere, mixing together, scattering across the spotless floor.

"It's all right, Tabitha," Maxie heard himself say. "Really, there's no—that is, you've no need to be apologetic. You already know how I feel."

"But you said you didn't mean that."

"And you believed me?"

Tabitha did not answer.

"Tabitha...I'm glad you feel the way you do. But, as much as I like you, I wouldn't want you to think that I'm your only recourse. You realize—Well. I'm not young, and you are, and you'd be perfectly within your right to go off and make something else of yourself, and find someone more suitable, if it's a case of—"

Maxie stopped talking when Tabitha got up and moved over a few feet, sitting right next to him on the edge of the bunk. It seemed to be a challenge of sorts; Tabitha was studying him with an almost defiant expression, testing Maxie's sincerity by seeing whether he was really allowed to do something as bold as this. Maxie wanted to be amused at how tense he looked, but he could feel that knot in his own stomach still sitting there, patiently waiting for all of this to end badly. The candle shuddered in its lamp.

"Maxie?"

"Yes?"

"Did you mean what you told me today? Yes or no."

"Yes, Tabitha. I did."

Tabitha digested this. He stared piercingly into Maxie's face, still hesitant, evidently wracking his brain for some proof he could demand that would be irrefutable, and that would be powerful enough to break through all of the barriers that separated them in his mind. A frown played around the corners of his mouth.

"Okay. Well...In that case..." He paused, turning over whatever thought had come to him. "Is it all right if I..."

"If you what, Tabitha?"

But Maxie had guessed what he meant, and when Tabitha plucked inquiringly at the collar of his overcoat, Maxie reached a hand up to his own throat, stopping him. Immediately Tabitha pulled away, looking apologetic.

"I'm sorry, Maxie," he said quickly. "If you don't want..."

"No, it's all right." Maxie grimaced and slipped a hand inside the front of his coat. "It's just a bit of a hassle..."

Though he had unfastened his coat countless times before, his fingers fumbled over the buttons, and it took him twice as long as usual to undo them all. When he finished, he stood and pulled it off, folding it over itself and setting it on the floor. The long-sleeved shirt he wore beneath was much thinner, and having his coat off made him feel light and fragile, like an armored thing that had shed its skin.

Without a word, Tabitha pulled off his red hood, leaving him perched on the edge of the bunk in his dark, sweat-stained undershirt. It struck Maxie (not for the first time recently) how physically fit Tabitha was; it was by no means an unpleasant realization, and yet he could not shake the feeling that something was horribly amiss. A quarter of an hour ago, he had been staring helplessly at the ceiling of his cabin, feeling like an old fool who'd shoved his foot in his mouth on a whim, and now Tabitha was just sitting there in his undershirt as though it made sense to him, as though all of this were the most straightforward thing in the world. It couldn't be right. Nothing ever happened that easily, the moment he asked for it; there had to be something about all of this that he was missing.

"Tabitha, are you certain you're all right with this?"

Tabitha had been removing his gloves, and looked up with one halfway off.

"Sir?"

"Are you certain you're all right with this situation?"

Maxie waited for an answer, but Tabitha simply finished removing his gloves and tossed them lightly to the floor atop his hood. Then he stood up, and in the space of a breath they were face-to-face. Tabitha was an inch shorter than him. Maxie had never really noticed that before.

"Tabitha—really, please tell me if any of this seems too sudden. You've always been very—dutiful—and I don't want you to feel somehow obligated, if you aren't fully comfortable with—with anything. So, if you would rather not indulge me, please don't hesitate to—"

Tabitha kissed him.

Maxie had not quite been expecting the force of it, and he staggered, steadying himself so that he could kiss back. A fire kindled in the pit of his stomach, burning away the tense knot that had formed there, and soon there was no trace of it left. Words of reassurance he could doubt, but not this, because Tabitha was kissing him with a passion that was too intense to have been born in that hour. It had to have existed, Maxie realized, long before—building gradually, invisible yet powerful, like the pressure in the earth before a volcanic eruption.

He quickly lost the ability to think, and that was good. His sphere of consciousness narrowed to the confines of the cabin walls, and here there was no looming danger, no unspeakable disaster, no blind race for ancient answers that did not seem to exist. For a little while, Maxie's world was just warmth, and joy.


	26. Chapter 26

Dawn broke over the endless, rolling sea. The sun spilled onto the horizon, staining the sky first purple, then pink, then a bright, glorious gold; the rows of low waves gradually turned blue as the morning came into full bloom. The _Silver Stantler _cut a course back to Sootopolis City as fast as she could manage without a direct wind from the southwest, sailing full and by, and though she'd passed two ships in the night, dawn found her alone upon the waves. Not even the men in the topmasts could spot another vessel, though they could see farther beyond the curve of the horizon than the people and Pokémon down on the deck.

The wind had been unable to make up its mind about what to do with itself all night, and its moodiness only grew at dawn. The crew had their hands full trying to keep the _Stantler's _sails filled in a way that took them where they wanted to go, though they were helped somewhat by the water, which seemed to be pulling them in the direction of the crater, still many miles distant. On deck, the activity stayed muted, though sunrise usually would have meant an array of loud chores. Most of these formalities had been shunted aside lately, and the shortage of hands meant that no one had quite gotten enough sleep.

Archie stood off to starboard on the main deck, out of the way of the crew, wearing his ragged suit and bloodstained bandana. His sleeves were rolled up past the elbow, and he rested his forearms on the bulwark, watching the water sweep by in a rush of foam underneath the keel. Once in a while, some call from the rigging would make him glance up, observing the way a sailor adjusting the angle of a piece of canvas, but when this had been done his attention always returned to the ocean. He seemed to be studying it, but not intently—as if it were a book he had read countless times, whose words he turned to now because they were a familiar comfort. It engrossed him so deeply for so long that he did not notice Shelly until she stepped up directly beside him.

"Wondered where you went."

She had tied her bandana around her head to cover the gash on her forehead, and the wind blew strands of her red hair from beneath it across her face.

"You sleep all right?" she asked him.

"Would have if you'd let me."

He poked her in the small of the back. She ignored this accusation and pinched the torn sleeve of his shirt.

"I can't believe you put this back on."

"What? They washed it. It's my suit."

"It's still a mess."

"It's still my suit."

Shelly shook her head. Archie fiddled with his rolled-up sleeve, then stared out across the sea, calm immediately around the ship but visibly choppy nearer the horizon, the white flecks on top of the biggest waves flashing brightly in the sunrise. Shelly watched him watch it for a minute, and then asked, "What are you thinking about, Archie?"

He glanced over at her, then exhaled through his nose; it came out as a sort of sigh.

"I dunno. Everything, I guess. Trying to get my head around it. We had everything going for us, it was all finally coming together after all this time, and then, just like that..." He scratched the back of his head. "I don't know, Shelly. It's just hard to let everything go all of a sudden. Kinda already did, when I thought you were dead, but now I keep thinking...Well, you're here again, and Kyogre's out there around Sootopolis, so what if there's still a way..."

If he had not looked at her at that instant, he would have missed it, the briefest flash of feeling that she wiped from her face at once: alarm.

"I didn't mean—Shelly, look, you know what I'm getting at. It's just...It's not easy to let it go."

"Only because you've been stuck out here," Shelly said. "You haven't seen what's been going on. Believe me, Archie, we can't control Kyogre. Nobody can." She brushed her hair out of her face, tucking a longer strand of it behind her ear. "But what's done is done. We can't go back and do it over again. The only thing we can do now is keep moving forward and look for a solution."

"Heh."

"What's so funny?"

The smile Archie had almost produced faded under her sharp look.

"Eh, it's not funny, but...You're always so focused."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No. I just wish you'd lighten up sometimes, is all. I never know if you're happy."

"It doesn't matter."

"Whether you're happy? Yeah it does, Shelly. Matters a lot."

He laid a hand on her shoulder and rubbed her back with his thumb, pressing it into a tense spot on her shoulder blade. She sighed, looking down at the sea instead of at him, and he brushed at the long hair covering her back like a waterfall.

"Shelly...I know I've said it already, but I'm sorry."

"I believe you, Archie."

"Do you forgive me?"

"I don't know. Maybe not yet."

The hand on her back moved down a little way, slipping beneath her hair to lightly scratch her spine. Shelly rested her elbows on the bulwark, shifting her weight to stay steady when the stern tilted upward a few degrees, and shielded her eyes against the rising sun with one hand to better scan the sparkling sea, seeing nothing but a distant puff of water that might have been a Wailmer surfacing. When she looked over she found Archie examining her profile, and read his mind without much trouble.

"You still want me to say it, don't you?" she asked.

"It'd be nice, yeah."

Shelly sighed.

"I'm sorry, Archie. I just need some time."

"We don't have any."

Instead of trying to argue, Shelly pressed the side of her face to his shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around her waist. Together they watched the waves go by. The steady motion of the sailing ship did not unbalance them in the slightest, though the deck rocked visibly; they were creatures of the sea.

When the sun had fully risen, warming the air and making the whole length of the deck shine, Shelly tugged herself out of Archie's grasp, saying she wanted to find out about breakfast. Archie's pleased expression faded as he watched her go, and he unconsciously rubbed at the bruise on his jaw once she had disappeared from sight.

Getting stern, stubborn, professional Shelly to show affection had always been like a game to him. He had quickly learned better than to play it in front of the rest of the team, but when they were alone in some place where they might be discovered, any smile or laugh or kiss he could tease out of her had been worth more than one he got in total privacy. Now Archie found that he did not enjoy that game anymore. All he wanted—and he knew he might never get it—was something simple and straightforward, a handful of words that would prove she cared.

_She could do much better than the likes of you._

Archie snorted, but then frowned, returning his attention to the waves. He had never felt replaceable before, and didn't know what to do about it.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Tabitha sat upright in bed with his back to the cabin wall, half-listening to all the myriad sounds of the ship and the sloshing of the sea outside, muffled voices from above sometimes interrupting the rhythm of the waves. The candle in the wall lamp had long since burned out, and most of the light came from a single large porthole over the center of the bunk; however, the depth of the ship and the angle of the sun was such that the oval light did not quite make it to the other wall, instead scurrying back and forth across the scuffed planks of the floor, as if it were a searchlight halfheartedly seeking something among the scattered clothes.

Beside him, Maxie was drooling onto the pillow, his red hair lank and tousled, thoroughly undignified and more than a little amusing in consequence. Tabitha hadn't had the heart to wake him, though he himself had been up for some time; it was pleasant enough to do nothing, sitting here enjoying the sheltering darkness and Maxie's steady breathing.

It was strange, Tabitha thought. Wonderful, and yet strange, that this had happened now, of all times and in all places. He was tempted to feel that Fate had taken pity on him, that in exchange for tearing apart the whole rest of his world, he had been granted this: this thing he had wanted so much, for so long, and told himself every day that he could not have. It was so right and delicious and good that Tabitha almost could not stand it, and if Maxie had not been asleep he would have kissed him furiously, just because he was allowed. He was _allowed. _That was what made it so remarkable. Tabitha had spent so long cramming stupid fantasies down into the bottommost corner of his mind that it was easy to believe none of this had happened, that if he pinched himself now he'd wake up again alone, but no. This was not some hazy scrap of a dream, played out in those vulnerable moments between waking and sleeping when he was too tired to curse his own foolishness. This was real.

Tabitha closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall, smiling a peaceful, genuine smile that looked out of place on him, and even as he smiled he knew that it ran against the grain of the situation at large. These recent days of disaster were the darkest in his life, and could very well turn out to be his last—and yet it didn't matter, not right now. The sheer delight of this moment was like a fire inside him, simmering low and slow after the night's long joy but still burning, still keeping his heart warm. A rational voice in the back of his mind pointed out that his contentment could not last much longer; eventually they would both have to rouse themselves and face the bleak reality beyond the cabin door. But there would be time enough later to pick the weight of the world back up, and to steel themselves once more against the dangers of the unknown future. For now, in the dark and quiet, Tabitha simply let himself be happy.

The round patch of sunlight on the floor slid back and forth as the ship sailed, the light changing color when it passed through water on its way to the low-set porthole. Tabitha idly reached down and brushed Maxie's widow's peak before running a hand through his sweaty hair, and with his eyes still closed he found himself more aware of every physical sensation: the cool air on his chest, the scratchiness of the tangled sheets, the texture of hair between his fingers. All these little tactile things were what proved it was happening, and so Tabitha savored them especially, letting nothing intrude on his sense of immediacy. He had no idea how long it had been since he'd woken. He didn't particularly care.

"Tabitha?"

Tabitha looked down. Maxie had blinked himself awake, and after a yawn pulled himself upright, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and rubbing at a crick in his neck. The two of them exchanged blank looks, as if each were waiting for the other to say some formal banality like _good morning, _but instead of this Maxie gave a sigh and leaned his head on Tabitha's shoulder, closing his eyes. Tabitha put an arm around him.

For quite a while they did not speak. There was nothing pressing left to say, really; they had had time enough to talk earlier, in the darknesses between, and talking would have broken the spell of silence that shielded them in the dark room. But at last, with audible resignation, Maxie opened one eye and asked, "What time is it, Tabitha?"

"I'm not sure." Tabitha shifted his back against the hard wall, the sheets rustling. "Maybe nine. I guess we missed breakfast."

"How close are we to Sootopolis now?"

"I don't know."

Maxie raised his head off of Tabitha's shoulder. The way he had slept against the pillow had made one side of his hair behave oddly, and he tried to smooth it out, with only moderate success; Tabitha watched him in amusement.

"I suppose you haven't got a cigarette, have you, Tabitha?"

"No. Do you want me to go get you one?"

"Don't bother. It's not a habit I need to pick up again."

He grimaced and rubbed a bruise on his collarbone, wincing. Tabitha noticed, and said, "I'm sorry I bit you."

Maxie chuckled and made one last attempt to smooth out his hair. When this failed, he accepted defeat and said, "Well...If it's really that late, I suppose we ought to get up and make ourselves presentable."

"Do we have to?"

Maxie laughed again, his shoulders (pale, thin, dusted with freckles) rising and falling when he gave a quick little sigh at the end of it. Tabitha studied him as best as he could in the dim light.

He hadn't been _waiting, _per se, because Tabitha was not one to pine and sigh and wait like a silly schoolboy. It was never going to happen, that was that, and he hadn't entertained any genuine hope otherwise. Yet now that the not-wait was over, Tabitha had an odd feeling that it could only ever have happened this way, that if everything had not gone so horribly wrong, the two of them would have just stayed master and commander forever. There had been a wall there that Tabitha would never have dared breach, and Maxie, perhaps, might never have come to want to.

"Tabitha?"

"Yeah?"

Maxie sighed again, in that one particular way that meant he was about to disparage himself. Tabitha hadn't ever heard it until recently, but it was a distinctive enough sound that he'd come to identify it at once.

"Tabitha...I'm sorry again for never realizing that you felt...Well. I seem to have a knack for it."

"For what?"

"For missing the obvious. First with Team Magma—the validity of our whole mission—and now you...I suppose I have trouble seeing what's right in front of me."

He smiled a little, as if amused by his own ineptitude, wondering how he could have spent years watching obedience become loyalty and loyalty become devotion without noticing devotion slowly become something more. Tabitha shrugged off this oversight.

"It doesn't matter, Maxie."

"Doesn't it?" Maxie hesitated, then asked, "Tabitha?"

"Hm?"

"If I had never asked you...Would you ever have told me?"

"Told you what?"

"That you wanted this." He ran his knuckles gently along Tabitha's bare shoulder.

"Told you? No. Never."

This was said with such conviction that Maxie smiled. He pulled himself further upright, using the thin pillow to cushion his back against the wall.

"Never? And why in the world not?"

"Unprofessional."

Tabitha shrugged again, as if the inherent gravity of that concept explained everything. When Maxie still looked curious, he added, "I would rather have never said anything and stayed with you, than told you and heard you say no."

"But what made you assume that I would?"

"I don't know. You're just..."

Tabitha trailed off, studying him intently, resisting the impulse to try and count his freckles in the dim light. He was still not at all sure how best to articulate how he felt about Maxie, how to describe what it was like to look at the man beside him and know that he was the most extraordinary person on the face of the earth, and deserving of more than Just-Tabitha had ever had to give. Funny, really, how easy it was to say things that were grounded outside of himself—to bark orders, taunt enemies, organize other people and get them to obey—and yet when it came time to try and extract something honest and delicate from the depths of his own soul, Tabitha found that the right words never seemed to be there. It had always been that way, though. Alex had nagged him about it, years ago.

"Maxie—I'm not like you," he said at last. "I've never had any nice things."

This explanation made Maxie laugh.

"Really, Tabitha, that doesn't matter in the slightest. I'm not as special as all that."

Tabitha did not argue with words.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The wind stabilized little as the morning wore on, continuing to come from half a dozen directions every hour. "Boxing the compass" was how Drake described it, and it made the _Stantler _sail in fits and starts; sometimes they had to swing the ship around to its other side to catch the wind when it changed direction. Drake himself took the high noon survey to determine their location, sunlight winking off of his sextant, and expressed satisfaction when the calculations he made afterwards matched the electronic coordinates being received up in the forecastle.

Though the _Stantler _had made this journey only the day before yesterday, the voyage back to Sootopolis from Sky Pillar felt much different than the initial setting out. Two days prior there had been, if not optimism, then a certain reserve of hope, pinned on the mysterious ruin toward which they sailed, and the assumption that they would have some time to search for clues before the next great disaster. That hope had quite gone. No one but Drake looked composed, and Lance, in particular, did not seem fully satisfied with his decision to turn back in response to the revelation that Sootopolis City would probably be Kyogre and Groudon's next battlefield. He spent the morning alternating between futilely trying to pick up a signal from Steven and Wallace, and pacing the rocking quarterdeck, sometimes sparing a frown for the ocean that stretched away on all sides, white-capped in places where the wind and waves ran contrary to one another. Several times he released Gyarados into the sea and let it follow alongside them for exercise, its crimson scales contrasting with the blue water. The second time, Pikachu spent a while riding on its head, talking to it.

Maxie and Tabitha did not show themselves until lunch, and after it Maxie braved his lingering reservations and headed topsides, since he had not really experienced the voyage to Sky Pillar from any vantage point other than inside his cabin. He stood blinking on the main deck as if surprised by the intensity of the sun, taking in the full experience of traveling by sail; it felt nothing like standing on the upper deck of the old base, far above the waterline.

"There's a certain charm in it," he admitted, peering over the bulwark at the rushing water, and clutching the wood more tightly whenever the ship dipped into the trough of a wave that sent spray over the bowsprit. "But all the same, I'd rather not—"

He nearly lost his balance when the ship heaved to the right, swinging around on its own momentum to take a starboard tack and catch more wind; Tabitha caught Maxie by the arm, and only let go when the ship had settled into its new course and Maxie seemed sure of his footing.

"Thank you," said Maxie.

Instead of _you're welcome, _Tabitha put a hand on Maxie's lower back and buried his face in the side of his neck for a second, making Maxie smile.

Onward they sailed without pause, the wind never of much help, and with the water spreading to the horizon without end, only the occasional bump or dark shadow upon it indicating some tiny bit of land. These were not heavily trafficked waters even at the best of times; a strong belt of currents that ran between Mossdeep and Pacifidlog made it safer and faster for vessels to avoid this area altogether. But even still, it was unnerving to pace the deck with the sun blazing and see not so much as a hint of another ship, and to hear nothing at all on the short-range radio that normally would have let them hail whoever they passed.

It was not that there was any visible danger. If anything, they could hardly have hoped for an easier sea, especially given what they knew to be the state of things elsewhere. But that very contrast unsettled them all, travelers and crew alike—and no one more so than Lance, whose increasingly tense body language could be read even from the other end of the ship. Shelly described it to Archie as they stood together in the bows in the early afternoon, unperturbed by the sea spray.

"We're cut off," she told him. "The news is brutal sometimes, but at least it's information; it puts things in perspective. Out here we don't have any idea what's going on anywhere else."

"Wonder what that feels like," was his half-sarcastic response; she had no clever reply.

The weather fooled no one; they did not need the shadow of clouds overhead to make them anxious. Everyone but Archie (and he imagined it well enough) had memories of what could happen soon, all still raw from the day it had begun. The earth shivering, cracking roads and breaking buildings, and the sea rising, racing forward in an inexorable haste to spill over docks and up through streets and halfway into the heart of the largest cities, sinking lazily back into place and leaving utter devastation behind. And when they ran out of memories, their imaginations provided many other possibilities for what could happen next. The heat of an unnaturally bright sun, and the pounding of unnaturally endless rain, and a murmuring within the earth as dormant volcanoes hissed and stirred...

They passed another boat eventually, around three o'clock. If its captain was surprised to find an old-style sailing ship out in these empty waters, he did not question it, and what little news he was able to provide them was grim. Not a word from Sootopolis—a few boats had been lost trying to pass through the area—and the storm there was incessant, neither moving away nor dissipating, just sitting there as if waiting for something. Lance gave the other ship a few messages to be passed on to the authorities in whatever port they next sheltered, and then resumed his pacing, bouncing ideas off of Drake up on the quarterdeck as the other ship swiftly disappeared behind them, so small compared to the _Stantler _that it looked like a Swanna paddling away.

Down on the main deck, Shelly listened with interest to a crew member's explanation of the various stays and halyards attached to the front of the ship from the foremast, and Tabitha had just headed to the cabins to fetch Mightyena's Pokéball. This left Maxie and Archie temporarily alone in the stern of the main deck, as it was the safest place to stand, and moved a little less than the bows. Maxie winced when the ship pitched into a slightly deeper trough than usual, upsetting his footing and sending flecks of seafoam spraying over him; he had to grab hold of the nearby shrouds to steady himself. Archie did not even flinch.

"I never want to be wet ever again," Maxie muttered, scooting away from the bulwark and glaring at the ocean as he felt at the dampness on the side of his coat.

Archie laughed. He looked amused—far more so than Maxie's mild discomfort seemed to warrant—and Maxie could only stand it for a few moments, though he did his best to resist.

"What's that look for?"

"Heh. I _knew _you and Trisha were fucking."

He said this with all the triumph of having intuited the correct answer to a trick question. Maxie snorted and rubbed at a bruise hidden beneath his coat collar.

"That's hardly any of your business, I should think. And what makes you so certain?"

"Your cabin's not soundproof, you old bastard."

He laughed again. Maxie muttered something to the effect of _you've hardly been courteous yourself _before deciding that the most dignified response was to let the matter drop, and edged another foot away for good measure. The salty wind kept stirring his hair and laying it messily across his face; several times in only a minute he tucked it back behind his ears, scowling.

Just to the side of the ship, the waves alternately darkened and sparkled as they passed between the shadows of the enormous canvas sails, and Archie leaned over the bulwark to watch the _Stantler_ overtake a school of Tentacool, riding the current alongside the ship and then disappearing in its wake as it passed them all by, the round red portions of their bodies looking like ripe apples bobbing in the water.

"Well," he said, when he straightened up, "we won't get there until tonight, at this rate. Wind's being a tease. But I wanna see what's going on out there."

"You'll change your tune once we arrive, if you've got any sense at all," said Maxie at once. "A fine idea this is, galloping back into certain danger."

"What would you rather do instead, Maxie? Go sneak away somewhere safe so you can stick your head in the sand?"

"I had _wanted _to do the most sensible thing, whatever that happened to be," Maxie said irritably, gripping the bulwark for support as the stern rose on a wave, "but there no longer appear to be any terribly sensible options. At least, none that I can make out. If only we had more _time..."_

"How much did you honestly think you were gonna get?"

Maxie had no good answer to this. He twisted around long enough to glance up at the raised quarterdeck behind him, where he knew Lance was standing, though from this angle he could not see him. Archie followed his gaze.

"You guys really thought you'd find something out here?" he asked, as the ship dipped forward and sent up a plume of spray cascading over the distant prow.

"Something besides you, yes." Maxie grimaced and clung very firmly to the bulwark with both hands. "Though this 'emerald' business isn't much more than a guess. An educated guess, but a guess all the same, and this was only our first lead. It could very well take months to pursue the thing thoroughly."

"Won't be anything left of Hoenn in months. Hell, we're lucky Groudon and Kyogre have stayed apart even this long."

"I'm aware of that, thank you." Maxie let go of the bulwark. "And yet I still can't help but think..." He trailed off, considered what he had been about to say, then shook his head. "Well. It doesn't matter at this point. Obviously, if it's become a choice between pursuing a solution and letting Groudon and Kyogre devastate Sootopolis City, then we have to return."

He looked up towards the quarterdeck again, where half a sentence from Lance's conversation with Drake drifted down to them.

"I just hope the man knows what he's doing," Maxie said finally. This seemed to be the basic point that had been troubling him. "Frankly I think it's suicide to battle against Kyogre and Groudon directly."

"He put up a pretty good fight against me, from what I remember," Archie said, scratching his chin. "If there's a few other people as good as he is, they've got a chance of breaking even. And it's not like they have to beat 'em both down. If they can drive even one of them away from the city—just get them to go fight somewhere else—it would save a lot of lives."

Maxie did not respond, and when Archie noticed his expression, he frowned.

"What's that look for?" he asked suspiciously, sounding exactly like Maxie had a few minutes prior.

"It's just odd," said Maxie, "hearing you talk as if you care. Your first priority has always been yourself."

"Look who's talking."

They glared at each other, but it was more out of habit than anything; the knowledge of what they were sailing towards was enough to keep them both from getting vitriolic. Archie crossed his arms over his chest; Maxie dodged a stray plume of spray, looking annoyed.

"Well, whatever happens, I wanna be there for it," Archie said again. "If Kyogre and Groudon are really gonna duke it out, and take a whole city with 'em, then I oughta be there to watch. You too." He tilted his head, loudly cracking his neck. "How's that saying go again? You make your bed..."

"...and now we have to sleep in it." Maxie grimaced. "Figuratively speaking."

The return of Tabitha ended their conversation, and Mightyena growled at Archie as he dismissed himself; he made for Shelly before a call from up on the quarterdeck surprised him, and after it was repeated he clambered up the ladder, disappearing from view. Mightyena stopped growling only when he was out of sight. Tabitha smirked and patted it.

"He wasn't bothering you, was he?" Tabitha asked Maxie.

"No more than usual, no." Maxie patted Mightyena too; it wagged its tail happily. "He's tolerable in small doses."

Up on the raised quarterdeck, Archie found himself face-to-face with Drake's Salamence once he'd climbed up the ladder. It gave him a heavy-lidded stare before snorting and curling its long neck around its body, spreading its wings to absorb more heat from the sun. Drake himself was standing near the tiller, though another crewman manned it; Drake seemed to be simply surveying the situation, scanning every inch of the sea with his decorative pipe protruding beneath his mustache.

"You want something?" Archie asked him.

"Wouldn't have called you up if I didn't, now would I?" said Drake, his mustache bristling. The wind rustled his coat as he crossed to Archie, and he continued, with no preamble, "I've been thinking about it, and I wanted to give you some advice, man to man. Feel like I owe it to you."

"How come?" asked Archie warily.

"Because," said Drake, "there's men that sail, and then there's sailors. You're the son of a son of a sailor, and the older I get, the fewer I meet. It's worth something to me these days."

"Yeah?" Archie frowned at him. "Well...What did you want to talk about?"

Drake jerked his head to the side. Archie followed the direction of the gesture and saw Shelly helping a crewman lash a rope to one of the yardarms down on the main deck; she tied it off with practiced ease.

"Where'd you find that one?" Drake asked him.

"I didn't," was the answer. "She found me, more or less."

"Well, keep her."

It was less a friendly suggestion and more a blunt command, the way he might have told one of his crewmen to attend to some errand. Archie's expression clouded.

"I want to," he admitted, watching Shelly reach for another rope. "But...I'm not sure if I can."

This was clearly not the response that Drake had hoped for, or deemed appropriate. He took his pipe out of his mouth and pointed it at Archie, scowling from beneath his mustache.

"Son, I was already riding the tides when you were still a dirty thought in your old man's head, and I'll tell you this: if a man's got the love of the sea in him, there's nothing that'll ever cure him of it, not hard work or pretty words or any of the comforts of putting down roots on dry land. But it's the women that're the worst—they think they can squeeze the sailor out of you, that it's them versus the ocean, and they always get broken up when they realize they'll never be more alluring than she is." There was a gleam in his eye.

"What are you getting at?" Archie asked. Again Drake gestured with his pipe in Shelly's direction.

"You found one," he said. "A woman who loves the sea. They're rarer than that red Gyarados, and twice as hard to catch. If you let her get away from you, you'll always regret it. Take my word."

The gleam in Drake's eye did not fade; it was evident that some memory had kindled it. Archie stuck his hands in his pockets, the wind rustling his worn clothes.

"I'm trying," he admitted. "I screwed up pretty bad, though."

"Well, keep on trying until she slams a hotel door in your face and calls you a waterlogged son of a Sealeo. It's the least you can do for yourself, even if she doesn't come around."

Archie drew a tense breath, studying Shelly, who was ignoring the distant attention from the two of them, if indeed she noticed it at all.

"The hell am I supposed to do, though?" he asked, staring fixedly at her. "It's not like I can make her do anything. And I've never been any good at getting women to stay...Dunno know what it is. Guess they feel like I'm gonna get bored after a while and flake out. I mean, hell—" he scratched his ear, "—all right, yeah, I've pulled that stunt before, but this is different. And it's not like I'm asking a lot from her. But with everything that's happened and all this shit going on now, I wanna know for sure if she actually gives a_..._"

But he trailed off when he realized his audience had gone. Drake was already halfway down the ladder leading to the main deck; apparently he'd seen no reason to stay for chitchat after orders had been given. Archie's temper would have flared had the topic of conversation not already made him pensive. He continued watching Shelly with a dour expression, and it took a tug on the leg of his pants to make him aware he did, in fact, have some company.

"Hey, little guy. Didn't see you down there."

Pikachu flicked its ears and blinked.

"Pi-_ka_chu. Piii-ka."

Archie considered this opinion.

"You get what I mean, don't you?" he asked. "I just want a yes or no answer. Not like that's a big deal, is it?"

"Pi-_pi_kachu," Pikachu said, after a moment's thought. "Pika-pi, pi _pi _pikachu."

"Well...yeah." Archie rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing as he watched Shelly leaning over the bulwark. "I guess that's true."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Not until early evening could they finally spot foul weather in the distance, though they had been straining to see something of the sort since midday. The first sign of it, a thin smear of gray marring the clarity of the horizon line to the north, caught the crews' attention at once, but it took a little time before the others could be assured beyond doubt that this was indeed the stormfront. As they sailed closer, and the sun sank lower on the other side of the sky, the smear vanished in the darkness, but a strange flickering glow replaced it: lightning, too far away to hear its thunder, a hint of orange creeping from beneath the horizon like a fire hidden just out of sight.

Lance frowned into the growing darkness through Drake's pocket telescope, one boot on the base of the tiller so that he could steady the arm holding the telescope against his bent knee, his cape fluttering behind him. The pose, and his attire, made him look like an adventurer out of a storybook.

"I could go it alone on Dragonite," he admitted to Tabitha, who had asked for his thoughts, "but I want Archie and Pikachu with me so that we can eventually figure out a way to extract those Orbs. And in any case, I can't just offload all of you onto the captain." He glanced to where Drake was consulting with the bosun in the middle of the main deck, then frowned and snapped the brass telescope shut. "You wanted to be involved in this, after all."

"I wasn't complaining. I just wanted to know what your plan was. If the weather out there is as rough as we think, we can't sail this thing back into the crater."

Lance grimaced and polished his fingerprints off of the telescope with his cape.

"That's true, and I won't ask Drake to risk the lives of his crew trying it. Right now the best thing I can figure out is to just get as close as we can without endangering the ship, and then take off on some Pokémon. It'd be too risky to try and ride Gyarados in, but Dragonite and Salamence should be able to get us through if nobody loses their grip."

"Salamence?"

"Drake's coming with us. I've already asked him. Steven and the others need as many skilled trainers reinforcing them as they can get; I know Wallace made it back all right, but he's not enough." Lance let go of the telescope and clipped it to a metal fastener on the back of the tiller; it rapped against the wood as it swung in place. "I just hope we can make it to the city before those two ancient Pokémon have time to do much. Groudon should be there soon."

"Like to play the hero, don't you?"

"I don't like letting large numbers of people or Pokémon be slaughtered while I'm in the area, if that's what you mean."

This brusque answer did not faze Tabitha, who folded his arms and stared off at the horizon, the sinking sun behind and beside him making his stained uniform look a brighter red than it had in a while. Though his question had been answered, he did not walk away, and after half a minute Lance frowned at him.

"Did you want to ask something else?"

"Yeah. I did."

As they had not talked much at any point previously, Lance took a moment to size Tabitha up, trying to guess what the issue was.

"What do you want?" he finally asked.

Instead of answering right away, Tabitha looked over to the side, out across the ship, and Lance automatically followed his gaze. Maxie was on one knee next to one of the portside lamps, scratching Mightyena under the chin while it thumped its tail against the deck, the orange sunset throwing their shadows long and thin behind them.

"When all of this is over, don't prosecute him," said Tabitha. "Arrest me, if you have to have somebody on the books, but leave Maxie out of it. Let him go."

"You're thinking way too far ahead," Lance said dismissively. "We're in no position to guess when this will be over, and none of the legal stuff is my decision to begin with. Talk to Jenny about cutting a deal if it worries you."

"I'm not kidding," Tabitha said, and his voice was so sharp that Lance glanced back at him. "You're federal, you've got more clout than any of the city forces. I did all the dirty work; I'm the one that should get carted off."

"No one's getting carted anywhere until Groudon and Kyogre have been subdued. And if they can't be, there won't be a courtroom left in Hoenn to try you in anyway." Before Tabitha could argue, he added, "Don't get worked up about it. There's too much else going on."

Tabitha looked ready to push the subject, then thought better of it and stayed silent, though he did not move away. The two of them gazed into the dark horizon for perhaps a minute, and then Tabitha said, rather gruffly, "Thanks for letting us help in the first place. The last thing I'd want to be doing right now is sitting in prison. I hate being useless."

This seemed to surprise Lance, who took a long moment to formulate a reply.

"Yes, well—thank you for cooperating," he answered, in the same not-quite-friendly tone. "The last thing I'd want to have been doing this whole time is sweating you people, trying to figure out what you know the hard way."

"I'm surprised you gave us the chance to work with you."

"Well, it's not like I had much choice at the time. Besides..." Though Lance's frown deepened, his tone was not completely hostile. "You all had good intentions at some point, on some level, and I've seen enough sick things on this job to respect that. I know it doesn't count for anything except paving roads to hell, but it makes it easier for me to get work done."

"We were never out to kill anyone," said Tabitha. "We did what we had to do to get what we needed."

"Did what you wanted to do, you mean, to get what you wanted." Lance stared towards the darkness beyond the lamplight at the ship's prow, and the orange flickers of lightning that weakly illuminated the rim of the horizon. "Look, there's no point trying to hash this out now. Save it for later—if there is one."

They exchanged a long look: wary, but respectful. Then Tabitha headed away, his cape flapping, leaving Lance still staring out in the direction of the distant city with an even deeper frown.

As night began to deepen in earnest, the lamps hanging along the _Stantler's_ sides shone brighter, each an orange globe that drove away its own little piece of the darkness. With only the barest hint of moon, the sea stayed black as liquid coal, and they all became very aware of the stars; in the absence of any other light, they could see so many of them that even the most familiar constellations became lost in the jumble. The shyest and smallest stars had just come into view when a crewman hurried up from the navigation cabin to report some news to Drake; from there it passed to Lance and then to Maxie, Tabitha, Archie, and Shelly, who congregated around him on the quarterdeck to dissect it. The navigational equipment in the forecastle had picked up something very loud happening beneath the water—a rapid succession of thunderous noises that could only be underwater earthquakes, though of course the ship and her passengers felt nothing. Maxie agreed with this estimate.

"It's Groudon, I wouldn't doubt," he said, "making its way back up to the surface at last. I suppose it's ready to confront Kyogre again."

"Then we're running out of time."

Lance had been sitting on a wooden stool, and now stood up with a kind of determined flourish, lightly tossing his cape, which in the half-darkness made him look like an overgrown Golbat spreading its wings to take flight.

"You all know what the plan is," he told them. "I don't like it much, but it's what has to be done. It goes without saying that once we make it into the city, all of you should get yourselves up to Juan's again and wait for things to calm down. When the situation allows it, I'll meet up with you there."

"And if the situation doesn't allow it?" Shelly asked. "What do we do then?"

Instead of answering immediately, Lance started pacing.

"I've been thinking about that," he admitted, "and I don't like to put it this way, but there's a chance that I might be hurt or killed in the course of protecting the city. Obviously I'm not planning on it, but it's still a possibility, and in that case, I would need the four of you to keep going."

"In what manner of speaking?" Maxie asked.

"I mean keep up with the investigation, looking for a way to subdue Groudon and Kyogre." He looked between them all, standing in a semicircle before him with only half their faces lit by the lamp off to his right. "You know what I know, and you know how to find out more and where and how to search—better than anyone else, I would think. So if I'm incapacitated in some way, go to the police and ask to be put through to my home office. They know who you are, my supervisor knows you've been working with me, and they've got copies of all our information. Western Johto was hit almost as bad as eastern Hoenn, and until they can spare the resources to send more agents out here through the mess, you all would have to fill in for me as their first contact on the ground."

Lance stopped pacing when no one protested this. Again he looked between them all, or what little of their faces he could see in the lamplight. Shelly tossed her hair, and Tabitha nodded curtly, the both of them undaunted by these orders. Archie and Maxie said nothing, but it was clear that they, too, understood.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Over the next few hours, as they sailed onward into the night, no one really tried to sleep (except Maxie, briefly and unsuccessfully; he reappeared on deck within half an hour). Sootopolis and the clouds surrounding it could be seen as a great black shape that hid the stars, illuminated faintly by regular lightning; as the first few hours of night crept by the size of that lightning-streaked blackness grew steadily larger as they approached, as if a darkness were beginning in the crater city that would grow to swallow all of Hoenn. After the long, bright day, tense with the expectation of some unknown danger, nightfall and the first sight of the storm had come almost as a relief; now tension built again as the stars slowly crawled along above them, and as the enormous crater crept by degrees closer, wreathed by cloud and lightning.

It wasn't until after eleven that they finally drew close enough for the first hint of thunder to reach them them. Initially all they could hear were the very lowest notes, sounding erratically like a huge, frenzied drumbeat; in another quarter of an hour they began to distinguish other, sharper tones, so that the heavy air filled with an endless rumble that tickled the hairs on the backs of their necks. All of the Pokémon on board grew anxious; Pikachu's cheeks sparked in the heavily charged air, and it skittered back and forth along the deck in agitation, static electricity sometimes crackling over its fur.

When they were only a few miles from the edge of the storm, they had as good a view of the situation as they could have hoped for in the darkness of night, and it would have been obvious to any observer that this was not a natural phenomenon. Thick clouds had condensed into a circle only six or seven miles wide, centered directly over the city; evidently, in response to Groudon's arrival, Kyogre had concentrated all of its power into as dense a rainstorm as it could. The clouds hung so close to the surface of the sea that most of the high crater walls could not even be seen through them, but when lightning struck the outside of the crater, or (as happened occasionally) the water around it, they all had a glimpse of the torrent of gray rain separating them from the crater like a thick curtain. In a normal storm they would have felt drops of rain even from a distance; here the divide between rain and clear night sky was as sharp as if cut with a knife, and anyone who looked up could see the line in the heavens ahead where the stars suddenly vanished.

As they closed in on the city, the sailor manning the forecastle equipment reported a series of strange noises underwater, visible as a row of spikes on the sonar viewer, the whole sequence lasting only half a minute before ending. The sharp, sudden, loud sounds had been mechanically regular, and completely unlike anything they'd heard so far, even Groudon's seismic activity; it was worrisome enough that Lance sent Gyarados off to investigate, telling it to come back as fast as it could once it discovered the cause of the disturbance, which had been nearby.

"You'd better hope it hurries," was Drake's comment, once Gyarados had disappeared beneath the black water. "My guess is we haven't got twenty minutes before we'll have to turn around. Get ready to round your people up."

And indeed, the sea was roughening. They had hit two or three patches of turbulence in the past few hours, but now that they had all but reached the storm, the waters began shifting uneasily, waves building and breaking over one another in every direction like a panicked crowd trying to escape a building. Over inside the boundary of the storm itself, the waves rose higher and in rhythm, guided around the crater by Kyogre's will and creating a formidable barrier to any ship that might have dared try to enter—or leave—the besieged city.

The _Stantler's_ crew had already parsed the sails down to almost nothing in order to slow their progress forward, and the ship now traveled at an angle to the storm instead of directly toward it, both to slow their momentum and to bring them around towards the enormous archway cut into the crater's western face. Not even Lance was willing to risk being cooked alive by lightning by flying the mile up over the crater rim, right through the dense storm clouds.

Maxie and Tabitha stood in the stern of the main deck, Tabitha looking grim and Maxie grimly queasy; a little way ahead, Archie and Shelly kept to the starboard bulwark despite the worsening waves, gazing over at the front line of the storm. They both understood the moods of the sea well enough to read them even in the darkness, and Archie actually leaned over the railing at one point to stare harder through the night, helped by the near-constant lightning in the distance.

"Can you see that?" He jerked his head towards the wall of rain half a mile away. "Coming straight down, almost—no wind."

"Good. That'll make it easier to fly through."

Shelly took a deep breath; it tasted of salt from the spray being thrown up as the scurrying waves built height. Braving the distant rain and lightning atop a dragon was not an inviting prospect, but Shelly had done stranger and more dangerous things in her time, and she had spent the past couple of hours mentally preparing herself for this next endeavor. The key thing would just be to hold on; once they made it into the city it would take them no time at all to fly back up to Juan's. From there they would have as safe a view of the battle as could be expected, and would be well positioned to take whatever action was needed once the situation changed.

Lightning blazed a few miles away, illuminating the crater; a second later, it all but vanished into the clouds. A stray wave, higher than the others, hit the hull only a few feet from them and spilled over the side, running down the deck as the ship tilted; Archie and Shelly both grabbed hold of the bulwark with both hands to keep their balance. Thunder passed over them on its way out to sea from within the bowl of the crater, like the boom of cannonfire from a faraway battlefield.

"Hey, Shelly? Before we take off..."

Shelly stiffened, instinctively knowing what he wanted to say. They had compromised by not talking about it all day, though he'd tried to bring it up twice; now Shelly analyzed the approaching storm with redoubled concentration, trying to pierce the darkness.

"Shelly—ah, fuck it. Look, I know you don't wanna set this in stone, but whatever happens in there with Kyogre—I want you to know—"

He said it again—that simple, stupid, scary thing he'd been saying mercilessly since their reunion on the beach—and the worst part was that even now, amidst thunder and lightning and the dark, unsettled sea, a peculiar mix of emotions flashed inside her in tandem with a lightning bolt far ahead: joy, and fear, and the fear of feeling joy.

"Archie, can't you focus on what's important? We're about to—"

He kissed her, letting go of the bulwark for a second so that he could lean against the tilt of the ship, and if they had been different people the ferocious spontaneity of it would have been poignant: a strong man kissing a beautiful woman as they stood on the brink of disaster, backlit by a lamp and the flicker of lightning, stealing one last moment together before they both plunged into the storm. Then another wave hit, they both fell to the deck like loose cargo, and when they righted themselves Shelly said something like _will you get a grip already?,_ not because she meant it, but because he'd kissed her like he might never again have the chance, and it unnerved her. As he helped her up another wave hit harder than the others, and the crew redoubled their efforts; Drake joined the fray, Salamence carrying him up into the rigging to address a sail that was threatening to unfurl.

"Get over here!" came Lance's voice over the growing thunder; it took Archie and Shelly a second to realize he was yelling at them. "Both of you come on! We've got to get going!"

They hurried up the sloping deck, ignoring the crew; Maxie and Tabitha already stood against the bulwark beneath one of the swinging lamps, Maxie visibly miserable as the wood beneath their feet heaved. Pikachu bounded up to where Lance and Dragonite waited at the foot of the ladder that led up to the quarterdeck, Dragonite hovering and Lance holding onto the ladder with one hand to stay steady as the ship tilted back on a rising wave. When Archie and Shelly reached the group, Shelly grabbed the shrouds with one hand.

"We've got to go," Lance said loudly, "as soon as the captain gets things squared away." To Dragonite, he added, "One last time—go check for Gyarados," and it saluted and swooped away into the darkness.

"Where's your Gyarados?" Tabitha asked.

"I don't know," Lance admitted, clinging tighter to the ladder. "I sent it out a few minutes ago to check something, it was supposed to come straight back if it didn't find anything out. But it knows what to do. We don't have to wait for it if it doesn't show up. Are all of you ready?"

"Ready as we'll ever be," said Archie.

"Good. As soon as the captain comes back, we'll split up—Pikachu, you can ride with me. Maxie, Tabitha, you'll both go with the—"

But Lance cut himself off when a large drop of rain hit his cheek.

There was a long pause, during which thunder cracked closer than it ever yet had, and the shouts and calls of the busy crew mingled behind them into a flurry of agitated commands. The lamps all along the ship quivered from the impact of the erratic waves, sending light racing all along the wet deck, and everyone had to steady themselves to keep from sliding down towards the bow when a particularly high wave hit the back of the ship. Lance was the first one to actually glance up into the sky, and swore loudly when he did.

The near-perfect sphere of the storm clouds out to port had suddenly broken. A narrow corridor of rain and cloud that had not existed a minute before was creeping towards the ship, erasing the stars, as if the storm were a huge, patient predator that had sensed their presence outside its den and reached out for them with one claw. The waves heaved higher, as if trying to pick the _Stantler _up and throw it sideways into the main body of the storm, still a few miles away; in protest the whole ship groaned, and the masts swayed and creaked like trees in a high wind. Pikachu's cheeks sparked, imitating the approaching lightning.

"Kyogre knows we're here," Archie announced, gazing up into the storm. "It feels something out on the water and wants us under."

No one questioned his expertise, and a few seconds later, a surge of rain swept over the front of the ship, disappearing almost at once. The waves were so high now that they broke over the bulwark on either side more often than not, and in the nearly pitch-dark night there was nothing more frightening than to feel the solid ground beneath their feet tilt sideways. Shelly clung fiercely to the shrouds when the deck jolted.

A whir of wings beneath the thunder announced the reappearance of Dragonite; it hovered above the deck and shook its head, little more than a large orange presence in the shaking lamplight. Lance swore again and said, "Fine, let's get moving. Archie, Shelly—both of you should come with m—"

A roaring blast of thunder drowned out his next words, not echoing from within the distant crater but announcing the lightning that had struck the water only a mile or two away; the flash of it startled them all just as much as the sound. In the ensuing darkness, Salamence soared back down towards the deck, pausing long enough for Drake to yell down at Lance.

"I need a little more time, son! Can't leave her behind in this!"

As if to emphasize his point, another burst of rain lashed across the side of the ship, splattering over the already wet decks and hitting them all so hard it felt like pellets of hail. An enormous wave broke over starboard and ran over all of their feet as they held on tightly to whatever piece of the ship was closest; if Pikachu had not clung to the bottom of Lance's cape, it would have tumbled against the bulwark.

Lance waited for another lightning flash to jump and climb onto the hovering Dragonite.

"We have to get going!" came his voice beneath the thunder. "We'll have to find a way! Everyone—"

The lightning bolt hitting the top of the mainmast sounded like an explosion. A fraction of a second of blinding whiteness and colossal noise, thunder and the searing scream of the thick wood splitting all the way down through the topyard, sparks and splinters and the remains of the stays showering through the rigging and a faint hint of heat reaching them all the way down on deck—but no one could process any of it, because at the same moment the ship plunged steeply to the side from the force of a rogue wave breaking over port.

Shelly's two-handed grip on the slick shrouds was tight enough to save her from falling far, though the impact with the deck nearly knocked the breath from her. The others were tossed like ragdolls against the nearby bulwark; Archie and Maxie and Tabitha all hit it, and then in turn were hit by a wall of water as it came cascading down from the other side of the ship. The deck leveled, dipped back the other way—another blast of sea-spray—Drake and Salamence yelled something to Lance and soared away towards where the top of the shattered mainmast had caught fire. A spate of rain lashed them, then disappeared.

"_We have to go!" _came Lance's voice from above; Dragonite swooped into view, nearly hitting the deck. "Come on!"

Archie and Maxie scrambled upright, gasping and spitting out seawater, hauling themselves up by the bulwark. Tabitha was gone.

"Hurry!"

Pikachu sprang six feet into the air, caught hold of Dragonite's leg, and scrambled up its body to join Lance. All along the deck, sailors and Pokémon hauled ropes, and a couple in the crosstrees adjusted sails; someone's Pelipper had already all but extinguished the fire atop the mainmast. Drake and Salamence swooped by, calling something to Lance. Another clap of close thunder, another wave over the bow, the darkness all but complete with half the lamps now extinguished; Shelly clung to the shrouds so tightly her fingernails cut into the heels of her hands.

She heard Archie yell her name, and yelled his back, just to prove she was even these few feet away. Dragonite's wingbeats chilled her, and then a flash shattered the darkness for a few seconds as Pikachu shot off a helpful Thunderbolt across the water, giving them something to see by. The light lasted just long enough for Shelly to gauge the distance to Dragonite and make a grab for it; it saw her move and stooped while hovering, catching her with one claw. She swung over onto its back, behind Lance.

"Dragonite,"she heard him yell, "grab everyone!"

Thunder, loud and defiant, like the voice of Kyogre itself mocking their audacity. Dragonite grabbed for the back of Archie's shirt, missed when the ship tilted, and grabbed at him again, succeeding this time; it reached for Maxie, but Maxie had not noticed. He was clutching at the bulwark and calling into the sea, heedless of the intermittent rain, of the yaw of the struggling ship that would have thrown him across the deck had he not been clinging to the bulwark. Another sudden blast of rain soaked them—a roar from Drake's Salamence competed with the thunder in the lightning-light—

Like a scarlet fountain, Lance's Gyarados burst out of the water at the top of a wave only a few yards from the ship, Tabitha draped over its head. Below, Maxie lunged forward with a cry, and Dragonite caught him to keep him from inadvertently pitching over the bulwark as the ship tilted, water cascading over his lower body. Dragonite bellowed a question out at Gyarados, which roared back beneath the thunder—and then a massive spray of water erupted a hundred feet behind Gyarados, making Dragonite rear in surprise, hauling both Maxie and Archie into the air.

For a few wild seconds, Shelly had the impossible thought that another red Gyarados had surfaced fifty yards away, floating lengthwise in the violent sea just beyond the range of visibility. Then a stray lightning bolt struck the water only half a mile away, reflecting not only off of scales but off of steel, and Shelly nearly lost her grip on Dragonite's back and fell into the water. Even from a distance, it was unmistakeable, heaving there unsteadily on the same sudden swells that now battered the _Stantler _from side-to-side: the upper half of a crimson submarine, a craggy M painted on its hull.


	27. Chapter 27

Tabitha came to on his side, coughing up saltwater. He was lying on something cold and hard, and he gasped for air, wondering as he did so why it was there, why he could breathe underneath the waves and why he had something to lie on. He spat out water and rolled over onto his back, opening his eyes.

Maxie was kneeling over him, dripping wet, looking worried; a few feet above him was a roof of metal, presumably the same substance that was cold and hard against Tabitha's back. Harsh yellow light shone from a strip of paneling in the roof, and the world was moving; Tabitha could feel the floor beneath him heave and sway. Maxie was holding onto the wall with one hand to keep himself steady.

"Tabitha—thank goodness, are you all right? Were you hurt?"

Tabitha coughed again, then managed an _I'm fine _rather like the one he'd given after nearly drowning on the way to the Cave of Origin. He closed his eyes for a second; the reeling sensation ended, and he opened them again.

"He wake up over there?"

It was not Maxie who had said this, though the voice was equally familiar. An upside-down woman with dark hair entered Tabitha's field of vision directly above him, blocking the light, one hand resting on the hip of her long gray skirt.

"Heyah, Tab. Shit, you're a mess."

It took Tabitha a second to realize what he was looking at. When he did, he pulled himself into a sitting position with Maxie's help, resting his back against the steel wall and holding the side of his head, stifling another cough as Maxie fussed over him.

"...Courtney?"

"Last time I checked."

She tossed her head, then stepped away, and Tabitha saw she had been standing in front of a ladder. When the world lurched, throwing him harder against the wall, he realized (as Courtney caught a rung of the ladder, cursing furiously) that they were right beneath the inner entrance hatch of a—no, of the team's—submarine, the same one they had left Monsu Island in. Water sloshed across the floor around him.

"What—what's going on?" Tabitha managed.

He tried to stand, but the submarine heaved to the side, and he fell against the wall again; Maxie caught him. Courtney stopped cursing long enough to yell up at the round metal hatch above her head.

"Are you assholes coming or not? We can't sit up here forever!"

A banging noise preceded the inner hatch wrenching open, dumping half a gallon of water onto Courtney, who shrieked and spluttered. Shelly scrambled down the ladder, followed by Archie, and Courtney gave them an elaborate dressing-down under her breath as she squeezed water out of her hair.

"Where's the G-Man?" she demanded of them. "And the old guy?"

"Lance is behind us," said Shelly coolly, and dropped from the ladder before reaching the bottom, landing with a light splash and moving into the corridor, Archie doing the same; it made the small hatchway slightly less claustrophobic. Courtney looked just shy of snarling at the pair of them for having the gall to exist near her.

"I take it everyone's down on the lower deck?" Maxie asked Courtney. "I assume you informed them that we're—"

A succession of loud _bangs_ announced that someone else was climbing down the outer hatch, and had sealed the uppermost hatch door on the way; soon Lance's boots appeared above them. He scrambled down the ladder and paused to slam the inner hatch shut, securing it even as a lurch nearly threw him from the ladder. Pikachu, riding on his shoulder, had to cling tightly to the fastenings of his cape to keep from being dislodged.

"Go ahead and submerge," Lance said to Courtney, his cape flapping as he descended the last few rungs of the ladder. "The captain's not joining us. He wants to steer them out of this personally."

They all steadied themselves against whatever was nearest as everything heaved high, and Courtney roared down the corridor, evidently at someone on the other end: _"Just dive already!"_

"Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" Tabitha asked, looking between Lance and Courtney. He threw his wet hood back and wrung out a section of his overshirt with one hand, making water splatter over his boots; the sub's jarring movement made it impossible to stand without holding on to something.

"The weather's turned foul," Maxie said. "You were knocked overboard a little while ago. Are you sure you're all right?"

Gently he brushed Tabitha's dripping bangs out of his eyes; Tabitha forced himself not to react with affection in front of so many people.

"I remember that part. I meant what—" he stared over at Courtney, "how did you—"

"We've been keeping an eye on that boat of yours for half an hour," she told him flatly. "Didn't realize _you_ all were on it, though, 'til that red Gyarados showed up on our bow cam. Only ever seen one of those in my life, knew whose it was right away." She gave Lance a cursory scowl.

"But how did you get here in the first place?"

"We drove the damn sub, Tab, don't be dense."

"You know what I mean." Tabitha's gaze darted around the cramped, half-lit hatchway, heaving in the swells; the sensation was something like a horrible carnival ride. "What—what brought you out here?"

"We were looking for the two of you, believe it or not." Courtney folded her arms. "Trying to get to Sootopolis City. That was the plan, anyway—we raced the weather and lost. Hell of a lucky break, catching you out here instead; we thought you were somewhere up in the city."

"Who is 'we'?"

Everyone lost their balance when the submarine lurched fiercely, having been hit by a larger wave than usual; Courtney hollered down the corridor over Archie and Shelly's heads, and when they'd all regained their footing, Lance said, "We need to decide how to make the most of this. Where can we hash out a plan?"

"Lower deck's roomier," said Courtney, addressing herself to Maxie instead of Lance, "but fair warning, boss—everybody's holed up in the mess waiting for you. Think you're gonna have a lot of explaining to do once you get down there."

They submerged. The turbulence quickly lessened as they plunged deeper beneath the waves, and though the air pressure did not change, everyone could feel the descent in their gut. When they had sunk beneath the influence of the storm, there was no detectable motion at all, not even a sense of moving horizontally.

Tabitha, still dripping seawater onto the floor, wrung out both of his gloves and assessed the situation in the uneven yellow light, his gaze darting between everyone packed into the small space: Lance by the ladder, Pikachu on his shoulder, Courtney a foot away from him with her arms folded over her stomach, and Archie and Shelly in the narrow corridor just beyond, backlit by and blocking the light from the side panels. Though his head had cleared, he was still not certain any of this was happening, and without the movement of the water outside, the suddenly small world felt eerie.

When Lance squeezed past Archie and Shelly down the corridor, the pair of them followed him, and Tabitha rubbed the side of his head and scowled at the empty space they had left. This hatchway was such a familiar environment that to suddenly see it again (and to see Team Aqua here) could easily be proof that he was hallucinating. As Courtney headed down the corridor after the others, Tabitha touched the metal wall (it felt suspiciously solid) and looked over.

"Maxie, what's going on? How did this happen?"

Maxie shook his head and put a hand through his damp hair.

"I don't know very much more than you yet, to be honest. Courtney has been in the area—Lance was aware, or suspected—but I'm not sure, exactly, we haven't had time for lengthy explanations. But we decided to part ways with the ship as soon as Courtney surfaced. Dragonite helped get you in here."

"Did something happen to the ship?"

"The largest mast was hit by lightning. It's not completely crippled, I think, but I suppose the captain would prefer to keep his ship afloat than accompany us any further."

"Have I been out of it for long?"

"For long? No. But I was afraid that you'd struck the side of the ship and been concussed." Maxie put a hand through Tabitha's wet hair, as if expecting to feel a bump on his scalp. "Are you sure you're all right, Tabitha? Are you dizzy at all?"

"I'm fine. Just swallowed some water." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, but his soaked glove only worsened the taste of salt. "Guess it's starting to be a thing."

"Well, don't frighten me like that. Honestly—"

For a sudden stretch of time that Tabitha could not measure, he stopped caring that he was cold and tired and wet, that it was the middle of the night beneath the surface of the sea, that a few miles away raged a battle between two ancient Pokémon that might wipe one of Hoenn's oldest cities off the map. All of that mattered_,_ of course, but not much—not right now—not compared to what it felt like for the most wonderful man in the world to lean in and put a hand to his jaw and kiss him—

"You two coming or not?"

They broke away. Courtney had stuck her head back into the hatchway and was regarding the pair of them with one eyebrow raised. She did not look surprised—simply annoyed, and no more so than usual.

"Am I interrupting, boss?"

Maxie said something that Tabitha did not catch beneath how discomposed he felt. Courtney, however, made no irreverent comment, or indeed any comment at all; without a word she turned and started down the corridor once more, Maxie following, Tabitha right behind.

As they moved down the corridor, something about Courtney struck Tabitha all at once. He frowned at her back as they made their way towards the ladder that led to the lower deck, and after a few seconds, he spoke up—not because he needed to, but because he felt that he had to say _something, _to strike first and counteract whatever thoughts had to be running through her head.

"Courtney—why are you still wearing your uniform? You quit."

"Why? 'Cause it looks great on me, that's why." When Tabitha's scowl did not lessen, Courtney rolled her eyes. "Oh, for fuck's sake, Tab. You think I've had time to go shopping this week? Pull the stick out of your ass."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Lance, Shelly, and Archie left a trail of water behind them as they made their way down the narrow corridor in single file, its level floor and steady light unnerving after hours on the dark, rocking _Stantler_. Shelly stopped to wring out her hair, and this pause put Lance and Pikachu far enough ahead of her and Archie that by the time they started moving again, Lance had swung himself down a ladder near the end of the corridor and disappeared, Pikachu on his shoulder. A few seconds after he vanished, a chorus of voices burst up from the lower floor, and Archie and Shelly both halted again, listening.

It was one thing to have been told (via yells, through the rain) that some of their teammates were aboard, and quite another to believe it. They had dealt with no one directly except Courtney in the sudden scramble to get off of the limping _Stantler, _Dragonite ferrying them through the darkness and dropping them onto the sub's tiny topdeck; Shelly had nearly been thrown off of it before she could scramble down the hatch. Somewhere below them, people she knew were waiting, but she could not really grasp the idea of it, even though one or two of the voices in that jumble sounded vaguely familiar. Who was here, and why, and how was it even possible that they had managed to_—_

"Didn't get hurt coming in, did you?"

With one hand, Archie pulled her wet hair back from her face, looking for fresh cuts or bruises in the fluorescent light from the side paneling. The gesture was so sudden and sincere that Shelly almost wanted to laugh. Here they were, standing at midnight in a cramped metal corridor two hundred feet beneath the surface of the ocean, dripping wet from the rain of a storm they had only just escaped, bewildered and tense and tired and yet he was just—just _staring _at her, with that determined little frown she had seen a thousand times when he was thinking about some plan, as if for some reason she was, to him, the most important thing in this insane situation.

For a second, or maybe only a fraction of a second, everything fell away. Shelly forgot that nobody who looked at her like that could ever really mean it; it was two weeks ago, and they were in some forgotten corridor of the base in the middle of the night, half-lit and smelling of metal and saltwater, about to kiss just because they could, because they were their own masters and the world was theirs for the taking and he, of all people, had bothered to learn how to make her laugh. Then reality hit her so hard it felt like getting kicked in the stomach. Shelly brushed his hand aside, not meeting his eye.

"This really isn't the time, Archie," she said—brusquely, as if he had said something stupid or done something outrageous—angry with herself, for forgetting. "Come on, let's go."

"Shelly—damn it, do you even l—"

That infernal question again. At once Shelly crouched and slid down the ladder directly in front of her, leaving Archie suddenly alone in the upper corridor.

"So when's it gonna be the time, Shelly?" came his voice from above. "When we're both dead?"

Shelly paused halfway down the ladder, clenching it tightly; she knew he had a point and could not bring herself to admit it. Instead she kept going and reached the lower deck, her wet clothes forming a puddle on the floor even before she stepped down from the rungs. This lower corridor was narrower than the one she had just left, but brighter; only a few feet ahead, voices and light poured into it from an open doorway off to the side.

Above her, Archie started to say something else, but another voice reached her first. It came from further up the corridor, startling her, a shout that ricocheted down the metal walls to reach them long before its owner did. Hurried footsteps clanged against the bare metal floor.

"Commander! _Commander! _It's really you!"

A young woman with her long teal hair tied back bounded up, looking delighted.

"Commander Shelly! I finally got hold of Commander Matt!"

But her face fell, and she shrieked and clapped her gloved hands to her mouth, staring over Shelly's shoulder. Archie had just reached the bottom of the ladder.

"Holy shit," she squeaked, her voice muffled. "Holy shit, _holy shit_..."

"Nice to see you too, kid." Archie rubbed the side of his head, frowning at Brooke. "What're you doing here with the Magmas? And where's Matt?"

"C-Commander Matt's in the control room," she managed, lowering her hands. "But, um...how...Why are you alive, sir?"

She looked to Shelly for reassurance; Shelly could only shake her head.

"It's a long story, Brooke. But—you said Matt's here too?"

"Yeah!" Brooke still looked pale, but her excitement returned. "He's—wait, do you want me to get him?"

"Right away. We'll be in here."

Brooke saluted, then gave Archie a nervous glance before turning and pelted back down the corridor as quickly as she'd come, her footsteps echoing, scrambling up another ladder at the far end twenty feet away. Archie and Shelly stared after her.

"I thought you said you didn't know what happened to Matt," Archie said slowly, as the sound of Courtney's voice began to reach them from the corridor above and behind them.

"I have no idea what's going on. Brooke was in Mossdeep the last time I saw her, and Matt..."

Archie made as if to squeeze past Shelly towards the nearby mess deck, then stopped himself and said, "Wait—maybe you should go first."

Shelly took his point and stepped a few paces forward, ducking her head inside the long mess deck, which paralleled their narrow corridor but was considerably wider. The space was full but not packed tight, the sterile light a little whiter and brighter, voices ringing. Team Magma, mostly—a dozen of them—Lance off in the corner, talking to people she could not quite see—

"Commander Shelly!"

She knew the voice at once, though she hadn't heard it in a while. Sean looked no less surprised than Brooke had been, and the few others with him scrambled to their feet, all of them speaking at once. She did not have to guess when Archie entered the room behind her—within seconds they all simultaneously choked on their own questions, and when he approached, Chloe backed away until she hit the wall.

Behind them all, Courtney, Maxie, and Tabitha arrived as well, having followed the echo of voices to the mess deck. They had not done anything more than step inside the long room and blink before they were set upon.

"Commander!"

"It's you!"

"_Boss!"_

Something tackled Maxie. Though his wet coat dulled the force of the hug, it was still tight enough to make breathing difficult.

"_Ack—_Tabitha, get it off me—"

But the thing let him go, and Maxie suddenly found himself face-to-face with a delighted grunt, her horned hood thrown back; she saluted, and a few more gathered behind her.

"This is great, boss!" said the young woman brightly. "You're really here! We all wondered how the heck we were gonna find you, but you went ahead and found us!"

Behind Maxie, Tabitha's attention immediately focused on a familiar face in the back of the group.

"Derek, what are all of you doing here?" Tabitha demanded. Derek saluted.

"I'm sorry, commander," he said. "I did my best. But, uh..."

"We came looking for you!" Sierra said again. "Some of us, anyway. We hadn't heard from you since you left Mossdeep..."

Tabitha scowled, realization dawning as he scanned the room and recognized most of the people in it.

"You all abandoned your posts. You were supposed to wait for further orders."

"Please don't be mad, commander," Derek said quickly. "We just, uh. We wanted to know what was going on, and you never...I mean, we never got any further orders, so we got worried that you weren't ever going to come back. Sir."

Maxie had none of Tabitha's anger in his expression; if anything, he looked bewildered. He ran a hand through his damp hair.

"I'm grateful, of course, but there was really no need...That is, this was our mission."

"You're the boss, though," said Stanley. "You're not even supposed to go out on missions, you're supposed to just do boss stuff."

"What is 'boss stuff'?"

"Uh..."

Sierra took over.

"Signing things," she said. "Coming up with mission ideas. Doing the budget."

"And the payroll," Craig added, with emphasis. "And anyways, you never gave us more orders after you left. It's been a week."

"Six days," Stanley corrected.

"Fuck, man, whatever. Point is, you can't just go off and not tell us anything, you know?"

"We told you all to stay put," said Tabitha at once. Craig silenced himself, but Maxie looked somewhere between relieved and amused.

"I...Well. I admit I thought it would be all right. But apparently I underestimated...or perhaps overestimated..." He shook his head. "Well, you've managed to help us out of a tight spot. I suppose it's no sense being aggrieved over your breach of protocol."

He glanced to Tabitha, expecting some comment, but Tabitha had caught sight of another group of people nearby, and seemed dazed as he stared at them.

"What is it, Tabitha?"

"It's—it's those _kids _again," Tabitha managed.

"The hell you talking about, Tab?" asked Courtney, glancing between him and the kids in the corner, whom Lance had just finished speaking to. This caught the children's attention.

"These damn kids—" Tabitha looked between them, struggling for words, "—are always just—_around. _This is the third or fourth time..."

"We're not 'those kids,' y'know." Max adjusted his glasses. "We've got names."

Courtney raised an eyebrow at them both, then shook her head, turning away.

"Whatever you say, Tab."

"I'm not kidding!" Tabitha glared back at the group, his attention focused on Ash. "How the hell do you do it?"

"No idea what you're talking about," said Brock, and shrugged.

"Yeah," said May, "you're the ones who keep following _us _everywhere. We're just minding our own business."

"Except for now," Max admitted.

Ash had spared no attention for Tabitha's ire. He was hugging Pikachu tightly to his chest, letting it nuzzle his face; he had only just stopped crying. Pikachu wiped one of his cheeks dry with a paw.

"_Pikapi..."_

"I knew you were okay, buddy." Ash smiled. "I was never gonna give up on you. Not for one second."

Tabitha struggled for words, confounded by this repeated coincidence, but at last he let the matter go. He had little choice: the grunts began bombarding him and Maxie with questions, and further down the mess deck, Archie and Shelly endured the same. The questions the two of them received were more astonished than frightened or accusatory, as only one person besides Brooke had been at Monsu Island, and he seemed too flabbergasted to ask much of anything, simply staring at Archie. The others had all been stationed at the base.

"It's kind of a wreck," said Chloe, "but it's still there. Commander Matt kept things going, but a lot of people left after..." She glanced to Archie. "After all...all that stuff happened. But a few of us stayed and we're all here. The others are in the control room."

As if on cue, Brooke appeared in the doorway, followed by Matt. He was still wearing his uniform, though without his bandana, and as soon as he stepped inside he seemed to realize this oversight and pulled the crumpled fabric out of his pocket, tying it around his head with the same embarrassed haste with which a businessman might have adjusted his loose tie.

"Hey, boss," he said, then remembered himself and saluted. "Heard you went crazy and died."

"Long story," Archie replied. "But—shit, how the hell did you get here? What are you doing with these guys?"

"Well, it's a long story..."

"I want to hear it," said Shelly at once. "For the love of—I thought you were dead, Matt. That earthquake..."

"That just about did it," Matt admitted, "that and the tsunami. But nobody's dead, we all made it through in one piece. Close call, though."

"But what happened?"

Matt scratched at the brim of his bandana, looking between them both as if he did not know where to begin. He addressed himself directly to Archie when he finally spoke.

"Well...Shelly called about noon the day of the trade, telling us what happened on Monsu Island. Didn't know what to do, so we waited around for her to call again, and then around two the earthquake hit and almost brought the roof down on us. Had just enough time to get the entrances sealed before the wave came in, but when it did, it broke both of the hatches and flooded the whole lower level. Lucky I was the only one still down there when it happened; everyone else had all moved up to the storerooms."

"You got caught down there?"

"I escaped." Matt shrugged. "The main thing was that the damage trapped us inside base—all the water and metal and everything. Couldn't get out anywhere, not even up top. Wave went right over the cove."

"Shit," was Archie's comment.

"Wasn't fun, that's for sure. Half the guys panicked."

"How'd you get out, then?"

"Half-luck, really. I tried to keep everybody from freaking out, got people to explore the flooded level with the Pokémon and see if we couldn't find a way through the wreckage. And I tried to get the transmitters up and running in the meantime. Had to improvise and gut some of the other equipment for parts, but that night I finally got one working again. Put out a standard emergency signal on all frequencies, because we didn't know then how bad the damage was, so we thought maybe a ship might come by...Didn't hear anything back, obviously, 'cause half of Lilycove was smashed to shit. But then, in the middle of the night..."

He jerked a thumb at the nearby Courtney, who had been listening, but she rolled her eyes and did not pick up the story. Matt shrugged.

"Got an incoming call on one of the locked channels from our guys on the Magma sub. They'd come and parked outside, wanted to know if we were there and if they could come in for maintenance. Well, we just wanted to get the hell outta the base, so there was a lot of back-and-forth, but in the end our guys outside convinced the Magmas to pitch in and help get the place open. They were having some mechanical issues anyways, and it's not like there's a lot of places you can go patch up a sub."

"We rescued your asses," Courtney said. She did not sound pleased to have to admit this.

"You woulda been just as fucked without us as we woulda been without you," Matt pointed out. "And anyways, it took us the whole next day to clear the entrance up enough to get the sub in. Had to work on both sides with all the Pokémon, and it was a hell of a job. But in the end—"

"Made it in," said Courtney shortly; she looked as though the length of time Matt was taking to explain all of this annoyed her. "Fixed up and figured out what was going on everywhere else. Most of the guys jumped ship the next morning and headed out to Lilycove—bet they're all halfway across Hoenn by now. But the Aquas had food and shit at their base, so me and some people stayed. Didn't know what the fuck to do next, though. I would've taken the sub out west if there hadn't been so much weather going on."

Matt and Courtney exchanged looks.

"So anyway..." Matt made as if to tighten his bandana again, then stopped himself. "Well, we just stayed put for a few days, trying to figure out what the hell to do with ourselves. I wanted to get hold of Shelly, but I didn't know how, and so I thought, well, I should try to get as much of the comm stuff going as I could, just on the off chance she tried to touch base. I wanted to know what was going on with her, whether she'd had any luck figuring how to do something about all this, y'know? That's what the guys who came back from Monsu said she'd stayed behind for. And so finally, the day before yesterday, I got one of the computer terminals working, and the first thing I found was about fifty messages from Brooke out on Mossdeep, asking whether all of us were still alive."

Off to the side, Brooke straightened, looking pleased.

"So that's how we learned what you guys were up to," Matt said. "Well, only sorta, Brooke hadn't heard from you since you left for Sootopolis, and the Magmas were worried about their guys too. They all wanted to follow you out there, but they were stuck on Mossdeep, wasn't even a lifeboat to jack. So..."

"We came and picked 'em up," said Courtney. "And that bunch of kids from Monsu, too. Because apparently we're a taxi cab."

"...And that's how we got here," Matt concluded. "Got here an hour ago, actually, but the weather's been so dicey that we just kinda stayed put, wondering whether it was even worth it trying to head inside the crater. But we did a couple of active sonar pulses awhile back, trying to get a good luck at the seabed so we didn't scrape bottom, and your crew on the ship heard it—"

"—and I sent Gyarados out to investigate."

Lance had apparently been following the tail end of this story, and strode up to them, his cape still dripping as it swished around his ankles.

"I hate to cut this reunion short," he said, "but I need to talk to you, Archie. Maxie, you too. We have to make a plan right away."

He moved toward the door, then paused and said, over his shoulder, "Maybe you should come too, Ash. This might involve Pikachu."

Ash and Pikachu exchanged looks, then hurried forward after Lance, Archie, and Maxie; Tabitha and Shelly came as well, and all of Ash's friends, so that the mess deck looked a little empty after they had all filed out.

"Make a plan?" Courtney echoed. "What for? They don't still want to go into the city, do they?"

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Lance did not look happy with how many uninvited people had followed him out of the mess deck; the corridor was crowded, and he had to walk far along it so that they all had room enough to spread out. He addressed himself to Archie and Maxie, though Tabitha and Shelly were right there with them, and the kids in the back could hear him too, since his voice echoed down the hallway, bouncing off of the metal.

"This is a little unexpected," he said, as if that were sufficient to summarize the situation, "but we can take advantage of it. We have a much better chance of making it to Sootopolis below the water than above it. But there's so many people here," he glanced back toward the mess deck, "that I can't demand all of you drag yourselves into danger just because I need to get to the city. So, if we could manage to float on the surface for a minute, I'd like to ask Archie and Pikachu to come with me on Dragonite, just in case we eventually—"

"I'm not leaving Pikachu!" Ash said at once, from behind the rest of them. "No way. If Pikachu has to go with you, I'm coming too."

"And we're not leaving Ash," Brendan added. The other kids nodded; Lance could only give them an exasperated look.

"And the rest of us are just supposed to what?" Shelly asked him. "Turn around and go skulking away like cowards all of a sudden?"

"I want to see what's going on," Archie began, then cut himself off, frowning, looking suddenly tense. Maxie spoke up.

"It would be one thing if I could speak only for myself, but I can't very well ask everyone on board to voluntarily—"

"I've told you, I can't let tens of thousands of people and Pokémon be slaughtered by Kyogre and Groudon under my nose," Lance said shortly. "I am going, no matter what, period. As for the rest of you: if you want to do something about what—"

"We're coming with you," said Shelly. "I didn't come all this way to run and hide once Kyogre and Groudon showed themselves again. You know we all want to go, and we don't have time to argue about it. We've already made our choice."

No one contested this statement; even Ash and his friends in the back exchanged looks before nodding, Brendan jutting his chin as he adjusted his hat. Lance pinched his temple, his elbow hitting the metal wall.

"All right," he said. Another glance at the kids made him take a deep breath through his nose and close his eyes while he exhaled it. "All right. We don't have time to argue. But you realize, there will probably be nothing any of you can do, at least not right away. Once we get to the city you have to all go up to Juan's for safety—especially all of you kids." He locked eyes with Ash. "You got that? Go up to the Gym with everyone else and _stay_ _there_ for as long as things are ugly."

It was obvious from his expression that he was not at all pleased with the kids' inexplicable presence, and could not decide whether it was better to leave them on the sub with the remains of Teams Aqua and Magma or let them come into the city. It took him a couple of deep breaths to resign himself to the situation.

"Okay then—listen up," he said; he spoke loudly, and his voice echoed all the way down the corridor. "We're wasting time; the most important order of business is to get into the crater as soon as possible. Once we've sailed in, all of us can offload on the surface—whatever Pokémon we can scrape together can take us to shore. All of you get to Juan's and I'll head out right away to help with the battle. The rest of these guys can go do whatever they want once they've let us off."

"_What?"_

Everyone turned to look back towards the entrance to the mess. Several grunts had poked their heads out into the corridor, like curious young animals; the stubby horns of the Magmas' hoods looked like ears. Brooke was leaning so far forward that for a second, she almost fell over.

"Boss, you can't just _leave!"_ Sierra called. "We only found you like—twenty minutes ago!"

"Yeah, what's the big idea, boss?" Craig demanded. Above him, Stanley nodded. "What, we came all this way and you're gonna just run off again after saying hi? Just like that?"

"All of you get back in here!" came Courtney's voice.

Stanley ducked away at once, followed by Sierra; Craig disappeared with a yelp that said he'd been hauled out of the doorway by the cape. Courtney appeared immediately afterward; apparently she had been eavesdropping no less attentively, and shoved past the grunts and into the corridor.

"Boss, are you serious? You really want to go into the city?"

"You're under no obligation to come with me," said Maxie at once. "If you could simply get us inside the crater, we can handle the—"

"Oh, so I'm supposed to just let you idiots throw yourselves in there?"

She marched up the corridor towards Lance, who was closest; behind her, a couple more grunts peeked out cautiously, and before long Matt squeezed his way past them and followed. When Courtney reached the group of them spread out along the corridor, she halted, glaring in turns at Lance, Maxie, and the others, obviously unsure who to blame first or most for this insolence.

"Look, boss—I don't know what the hell you think you can do in the—" she began; Lance cut her off.

"We do not have _time_ for this,"he said fiercely, emphasizing each word. "Do any of you understand that? I can't stand here all night and listen to all of you argue, I haveto get into the city _right now_. I should have been there before Groudon arrived, and that was hours ago."

"Groudon's in there?" one of the grunts called from down the corridor. "In Sootopolis City?"

"Can it, Liz."

"I never got to see it, though!"

"I'd still like to see Kyogre," Matt mused, almost wistfully; Lance looked like he was reaching the end of his store of patience.

"Courtney," Maxie said, "put us on course for the entrance to the city. I hate to abandon you, but we have other priorities."

"We're already headed that way, boss," she replied, folding her arms. "The hell's up with him, though?"

"With whom?"

But Shelly had already noticed what Courtney meant. Beside her, Archie kept closing his eyes as if the light pained him, and put a hand to his head, wincing and gritting his teeth.

"Archie? Are you all right?"

"I feel sick," he said hoarsely.

He looked it; his tan face had gone pale, almost green, and he clutched at the wall for support, as if dizzy. Behind them all, Pikachu was slumping against Ash's neck, its cheeks sparking.

"Pikachu, what's wrong?" Ash plucked Pikachu from his shoulder and cradled it in his arms. "You feeling bad too?"

Lance's gaze darted between Archie and Pikachu, his expression suddenly alarmed.

"What is it?" Shelly asked him.

"We're getting closer to Groudon and Kyogre," Lance answered.

"Which means what?" asked Shelly; Archie was now leaning his head against the wall, looking ready to faint. Pikachu's ears drooped.

"I guess we're about to find out. But I think maybe the Red and Blue Orbs are reactivating."

"That Orb thing's still inside Pikachu?" asked Ash. "Pikachu—why didn't you tell me?"

Pikachu looked very weak now; its reply was feeble. Archie's grip on the wall tightened, but then he fell to one knee, panting; Shelly knelt beside him, one hand on his bruised shoulder. He was gritting his teeth, sweating, his eyes squeezed shut as if against a migraine.

"Archie, are you all right?"

He tensed. In Ash's arms, at the exact same moment, Pikachu did the same; the small noises of pain it had been making ceased.

"Pikachu?" Ash asked it. "Pikachu, buddy, what's wrong? Is it the Red Orb?"

There was a beat of silence. Then, simultaneously, many things happened.

Archie and Pikachu's eyes both snapped open, blazing with blue and red light that matched the patterns that flashed to life on their bodies. Pikachu shrieked, and Archie snarled, an inhuman noise that made Shelly pull away from him just in time to avoid the hand that would have crushed her windpipe. Pikachu wrenched itself out of Ash's grasp as light flashed again, a Pokémon being released: Dragonite. It stooped to fit in the corridor, thrusting Archie against the wall while yelping as it absorbed the half of a bolt of electricity that Pikachu shot in anger. Most of the bolt hit the ceiling, blowing out a light panel, stinging them with sparks.

"_Hold him down!"_ Lance yelled. "Ash, get away from Pikachu!"

Shelly dodged out of the way as Dragonite restrained Archie, pinning his arms to his sides and lifting him a few inches off of the floor. Archie writhed in Dragonite's grasp, snarling, trying to thrash his way free; the lines of light on his skin pulsed a bright, acidic blue.

"Ash, get _back!"_

Dragonite snarled right back at Archie, undaunted by his challenge; he kicked it, making it squeeze him tighter, trying to keep him still so that he would not hurt himself. Archie wrenched his shoulders, then kicked again; Dragonite did not flinch. The glow from his eyes and skin reflected blue across the metal ceiling.

It was worse than Monsu Island, Shelly noticed, as adrenaline coursed through her. He had still been able to speak then, to comprehend his surroundings; now he just looked rabid. It was impossible to tell whether he was fighting the Orb's influence this time, or whether its long dormancy inside him had strengthened it even more, like a parasite that had slowly but steadily fused itself with his soul.

"Dragonite, keep holding him!" Lance ordered.

Dragonite nodded. Archie snarled and wrenched his arms, trying to break free, but it was useless; not even the extra strength granted him by the Red Orb was enough to let him tear himself out of the clutches of a dragon. It dug its claws into his sides, making him howl, but pinning him soundly. Lance's attention was already elsewhere.

"Ash, you have to calm Pikachu down!" he yelled. "The Blue Orb has made its electric attacks much more powerful! It could damage the hull!"

Another Thunderbolt hit the wall of the corridor, narrowly missing Max; the whole sub shuddered as the bolt punched a hole in the inner layer of the hull, a wave of heat blasting down the corridor and searing all of them.

"_Kip, go!"_

Brendan had thrown a Pokéball; Swampert appeared before him, taking up the whole of the narrow corridor, and on a signal from Brendan it lunged forward, knocking Ash aside as it towered over Pikachu.

"Brendan," said Ash, "don't hurt Pikachu—"

But Swampert did not launch an attack. Instead it pinned Pikachu down against the deck with one foreleg and hunkered low over it, nodding back at Brendan. Pikachu screeched and shot a Thunderbolt directly into Swampert's soft underbelly, making it cry out in pain—but it did not move, or loosen its grip. May gasped.

"Brendan, what are you—"

"It's okay, Kip's part Ground-type! He can take it!" Brendan's jaw clenched as he pulled down his hat. "Hang in there, Kip! Keep Pikachu down!"

Ash leaped onto Swampert's back so that he could gaze over its shoulder at Pikachu pinned below, its eyes glowing red, its tiny teeth gnashing. He reached out a gloved hand to it.

"Stop it, Pikachu!" When Swampert heaved up, Ash's cap brushed the ceiling. "It's me! It's Ash! Don't you recognize me? Calm down, buddy—"

"_Chuuuuu!"_

Another burst of electricity; most of it hit Swampert's belly, but a stray bolt nicked the wall of the corridor, melting a hole the size of a bowling ball in the metal and exposing the wiring beneath. The corridor filled with the smoke and sizzle of burning metal as Swampert grit its teeth, pressing Pikachu to the floor, which had begun to heat up too.

Shelly barely noticed all of this. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as she watched Archie scream, trying again and again to tear free of Dragonite's grasp, so that its claws drew blood from his sides, staining his suit. He did not laugh, or try to speak—he just howled in a rage, twisting and fighting, Dragonite unwilling to use any actual attacks on him. Swampert stood right behind Shelly, and each time Pikachu shot off electricity she felt the heat of it graze her back, the light blinding. Ash was still calling to it, and the boy's desperation played like a soundtrack over Shelly's racing thoughts as she watched Archie—if she could still call him that—thrash in Dragonite's grip, snarling.

"I'm not gonna leave you, Pikachu! Just hang on!"

So this was how it would end. The Red Orb would burn away his soul, leaving only the parts that were already blackened and twisted, and in place of Archie there would be left a living shell, violent and insane, moved only by the desire for power and the enormous might of the sea. He would have to be put down like an animal, and she would watch—if indeed it did not fall to her to do it herself. Why would it not?

"Pikachu—can't you hear me? You'll hurt yourself!"

But maybe the Orb didn't have to do anything at all. Shelly watched Archie bare his teeth, his skin shining with blue light, his face contorted. Maybe this demon was what he had really been, deep down, and all the years and nights she had spent by his side were insignificant in comparison. He struggled, trying futilely to break away from Dragonite, and for a moment his glowing eyes locked with hers. It was like gazing down into a dark and empty well, wondering whether there might still be a little water left at the bottom.

"Don't do this, buddy! I'm your best friend, remember? I'm Ash!"

She did not have to help him now; it was not her fault he had become this. He had done this to himself, through greed and arrogance and foolishness, and it was not her responsibility to protect him from that. He wasn't her responsibility and she knew better than to be vulnerable and yet this was absolute terror, watching this happen, because what if the strain of it broke his mind—_did you miss me, Shellygirl?—_she'd have to carve him a headstone, the way he'd done for her—

"Pikachu, please stop it! I love you!"

She said it.

The light inside Archie flickered. It was like she had struck him; he gasped, twitching, and then suddenly screamed louder than he had yet done. It sent chills up her spine, because there was no madness or rage in it; agony alone tore that sound from him. The patterns on his skin blazed bright and faded dim over and over as he howled.

"Archie—"

For one horrible moment, she thought his chest had begun to leak blood. But the red that oozed from him was solid, not liquid, and a second later, the Red Orb left his body. It dropped to the metal floor between them with a clatter and rolled away, the blue design on it vanishing even as Lance snatched it up and wrapped it safely in the folds of his cloak alongside its twin. Behind him, Pikachu lay panting in Ash's arms.

The instant the Orb had left him, Archie's skin had stopped glowing, and he stopped screaming, as though his throat had been cut; now his knees buckled. He went limp in Dragonite's claws; Shelly caught him, and Dragonite let him go so that she could lower him to the floor. Dragonite stepped back a few paces to make way as she laid him out on the steel, his head lolling.

"Is he breathing?" Lance called to Shelly. Shelly checked, then nodded, swallowing hard. He was pale.

"Archie?"

No response.

"Archie, if you die again, I'm going to kill you." Her voice shook. "Damn it, _say _something..."

His blue eyes slit open. The fear squeezing Shelly's heart melted away, making it easier to breathe.

"What...happened? Where am I?"

His voice was quiet, and hoarser than usual. His unfocused gaze drifted to her.

"Shelly...is that you? But...You're dead..."

"No, I'm not." Shelly brushed the side of his face with the back of her hand. "And neither are you, Archie. Don't you remember? We found you."

Something seemed to register for him, because his eyes widened. At once he tried to sit up, but Shelly kept a hand on his chest, gently pinning him down.

"Lie still for a second. The Red Orb left your body just now."

"That explains it...Agh..."

Shelly kissed him, then pressed her nose and mouth into his hair for a moment before pulling away. She found she was shaking.

"Archie, please stop doing this. I don't know how many times I can handle it."

"Never again," Archie said. "I swear."

Shelly managed a worn smile, then bent and kissed his face and neck furiously. Archie raised a hand just high enough off the floor to weakly give the thumbs-up to Pikachu, cradled in Ash's arms; it made a congratulatory V-sign back at him.

Lance recalled Dragonite to its Pokéball, freeing up space in the narrow corridor, then looked grimly between the two lumps wadded in his cloak, as though they were skulls.

"So, the bonds of the Orbs have to be broken at the same time," he mused. "Well. That would have been useful to know before now."

He unfastened his cape at the shoulders, tying it into a bundle, so that the Orbs knocked against each other with a gentle clack; he then set this down on the floor in front of him.

Shelly helped Archie to his feet, and Pikachu shook itself as though getting water out of its fur before clambering back onto Ash's shoulder. Brendan recalled Swampert, and he and the others crowded around Pikachu as best as they could, giving it their well-wishes. When Archie had righted himself, he staggered; Shelly caught him on her shoulder.

"Take it easy."

Archie straightened, then asked abruptly, as though continuing a conversation, "Did you mean it?"

"Mean what?"

"Just now, when you said..."

Shelly nodded, smiling and sighing. She had said it, and nothing had happened. The sky had not crashed down, the earth had not crumbled beneath her; a gaping wound had not opened anew in her soul. If anything, she felt lighter—as though by saying it, and allowing herself to mean it, she had set down a heavy burden she had not even realized she was carrying. There had been a reason, once, to pick it up and take it along, but that had long since faded into the past. It was dead weight now, holding her back. She sighed again and pressed her face into Archie's neck.

"Yes, I mean it, you bastard." She found she was almost laughing with relief. "You ridiculous bastard..."

"Don't punch me," he said nervously, his voice muffled; now she really did laugh, cradling his jaw to make it easier to kiss him, not caring a whit who saw.

"Ugh, that's vile," came a voice. "Boss, can I throw water on them? They _are _Team Aqua..."

"Have some courtesy, Courtney. We're at a truce."

"Yeah, but does that mean we have to let them make out against the wall?"

"Jealous?" Archie growled at her; Shelly silenced him with a violent kiss. Courtney rolled her eyes and turned away, pantomiming sticking a finger down her throat.

All of a sudden, the lights all along the corridor went out; the emergency ones did not activate. Several people cried out in the ensuing confusion, and sparks sputtered from a few of the wounds that Pikachu had left in the hull. The sub shivered, creaking, and then one row of the lights came on again.

"That's not good," said Matt at once, looking up at a gaping hole that Pikachu had burnt through the ceiling, and through the next layer of steel behind it. Lance nudged the Orbs at his feet to keep them from sliding as the sub yawed a few degrees.

"We need to decide how to proceed," he said loudly, so that everyone could hear. "We're wasting time."

"You still wanna go in there, G-Man?" Courtney asked.

"Yes, I do." He picked up the bundled Orbs from the floor and spoke to Maxie and Tabitha. "I can't carry these with me into the fight, obviously. Could I count on you to keep them safe until I get back?"

"And to do whatever is necessary afterwards, yes," said Maxie. He glanced to Archie, who nodded from over Shelly's shoulder; she pulled herself away from him and composed herself.

"Matt," asked Archie, calling over people's heads, "can we make it into the crater in one piece?"

The lights went off again, and a screeching noise made Matt swear. When a handful of the lights came back on, a few seconds later, he said, "Sounds like the hull's hurtin', boss. Inner layer probably got punctured in a couple places."

"Thanks a lot, kids," Courtney growled. Another damaged spot in the wall near her elbow exhuded dark smoke as exposed wires sizzled.

"What does that mean?" Archie asked. "Can we make it in or what?"

"I think we're gonna have to try, whether we like it or not. She'll start listing here soon."

"Then go tell the guys to take us higher."

Matt scrambled away at once, Courtney following, and the grunts in the mess deck clamored for explanations as they neared them. The others in the corridor were left with a spontaneous silence that magnified the hiss and crackle of melted wiring, and the breathing of the dozen people packed all along the narrow space, blocking much of what little light was left. Lance let his wadded cape drop to the floor again with a dull, but echoing _clunk._

"Looks like everybody's coming with us, then."

He looked down the corridor, grimly taking in the extraordinary party crowded in it: Teams Aqua and Magma, and a handful of children whose presence he still could not quite believe.

"All right. Let's just get in there before tonight gets any crazier."


	28. Chapter 28

As they drew nearer to the city over the next few minutes, the submarine lurched often. They were rising slowly, trying to find the lowest possible depth that they could cruise at while still making it through the hole in the side of the crater, but the closer they sailed, the deeper down the chaos from the surface reached. A hundred feet below the waterline, they hit a current so strong that the sub lunged forward as if kicked, sending a metallic groan of protest through its frame, and the sudden change of speed told them they were at last shooting through the tunnel carved in the side of the crater and into the city itself. Most people out in the corridor had stayed there, and now held on tight to whatever was nearest as the submarine quivered; Pikachu nearly fell off of Ash's shoulder.

After a minute, another violent shudder threw everyone against the wall; as it did, a voice called down to them from the other end of the corridor.

"We got a problem, boss!"

Courtney hurried forward, one hand on the wall for support as she staggered. When she reached them, Maxie asked, "What is it? What's happened?"

"Looks like there's nowhere to surface over here," Courtney said. "Scans are pulling up a whole bunch of junk floating around the harbor—and if this is how rough the water already is this far down, there's no way we can open the hatch and get out safe when we're topsides."

"What about Kyogre and Groudon?" Maxie asked. "Are they really both here?"

"Gotta be, from what the equipment's showing. Looks like they're duking it out up ahead—smack in the middle of the water. If we get pulled in close to their bitchfight, we're tooled."

"We'll have to try skirting them as best as we can," said Lance. "Keep to the crater wall."

"Shut your trap, G-Man, I'm not talking to you. Boss, what's your call?"

Maxie's clutched the wall tightly to keep from being thrown into it when the sub shifted; the lights flickered on and off every few seconds.

"We have no choice at this point, Courtney. We must make for shore regardless. Stay as far away from the pair of them as you can."

"But how are we gonna get everybody off board in one piece?"

"We'll bust our way out," said Archie.

Courtney and Maxie both looked over at him.

"What?" Maxie asked.

"We've got plenty of Pokémon," Archie said, glancing in Lance's direction; his sides were still gently bleeding where Dragonite's claws had raked him. "Let's just surface as close to town as we can—get beached, if we're lucky—and tear our way out of this thing. Rip through the hull and run uphill."

"You want to crash the sub?"

"You wanna drown in it? It isn't gonna hold together forever with the inner hull shot through."

The submarine's whole frame shuddered to prove his point, unbalancing everyone. Courtney ground her teeth and glared at Maxie, silently demanding sane orders as she righted herself.

"Well, at least it's an idea," Maxie admitted. With sudden resolution, he added, "Courtney, do what you can to get us to the harbor intact. And get everyone ready to disembark. Keep us as far from Kyogre and Groudon as you can and make for the city—bring us as close to shore as you can. And, for reference: where would be the least dangerous place to pierce the hull completely, should we need to?"

"This spot would work," Courtney admitted, glaring at one of the gashes Pikachu's Thunderbolt had torn in the ceiling. "Half the work's done already."

"All right. We'll handle that when the moment comes. Make sure you surface as late as possible, and get everyone ready to evacuate; we won't have time to waste once we've arrived. Tabitha and I know where to lead everyone as soon as we're all on land."

The sudden barrage of direct orders seemed to activate some instinct inside Courtney; without so much as a parting shot she turned and hurried away, nearly running, eventually disappearing down the ladder to the control deck. Everyone else was left holding onto the walls to keep themselves upright as the sub rocked in the powerful current, and the harsh fluorescent light around them sputtered on and off.

"Hey, Lance?" came a voice; Lance turned to look at Ash, Brendan, and the others. Ash adjusted his hat with the hand not holding himself steady. "Is there anything we can do to help you when we get to the city?"

"Groudon and Kyogre are fighting here, the same way they did at Monsu Island," Lance told them, shifting his grip on the wall. "And I know you kids want to help, but that's out of the question. It's going to be extremely dangerous to deal with the two of them. When we get to shore I want you to go up to the Gym with everyone else and stay there; there's no reason at all for you to put yourselves at risk."

"But isn't that what you're going to do, sir?" said Brendan. "Put yourself at risk?"

"Yes. But that's part of my job, and you all are just kids." Lance looked at the five of them sternly. "Do as I say and go to safety with everyone else. The Gym is high enough up the crater that you should be out of danger there for the rest of the night, if we keep Groudon or Kyogre from striking a direct blow to the city."

"But, Lance, this whole time we've been hoping for a way to stop—"

Lance did not have the time or patience to hear Ash's argument; he turned away, and the sub heaved and shuddered again, knocking several people to the floor. Shelly staggered back up, clutching her elbow, saying no word to Brendan, who she'd accidentally fallen into; Brendan grimaced and put his hat back on.

As the next few minutes dragged forward, everyone kept a tight grip on whatever nearest them was solid enough to hold them steady as the submarine swayed; Maxie shut his eyes, shuddering. Though they could neither see nor hear what was happening outside the tiny world of their corridor, everyone knew more or less what was going on; they had crept inside the crater, and were now buffeted by the unnatural swirling currents as they hugged the wall and made for the harbor on the far side, trying to stay out of the way of whatever madness was happening in the middle of the water. It was easy to imagine it all, crammed into the hot corridor with erratic light flickering on and off: the sea outside, the storm in the night sky above, and the submarine now only fifty feet below the surface, creeping steadily towards the distant city. At least they had somewhere to run to there—if they could manage to make landfall inside a steep volcano, in a damaged vessel explicitly designed to never make contact with land.

After a quarter of an hour that seemed twice as long, Courtney reappeared, her voice echoing down to them before she herself could be seen.

"Okay, boss, we're headin' up and aimed straight for shore! Hold on to something, 'cause this ain't gonna be fun!"

They were already doing this, but redoubled their grips, and everyone's stomachs could soon sense that they were climbing upwards. Every few seconds, the world lurched, and a series of loud _bangs _and screeches echoed throughout the sub's interior as it shuddered. The fluorescent lights flickered even more furiously, sometimes switching off for many seconds at a time and leaving them in pitch darkness.

A particularly loud and violent noise made some of the kids yelp, and Lance called Dragonite out of its Pokéball once more. The large dragon had to stoop to fit, and as Lance explained the situation to it, it surveyed the metal roof above, rapping a claw against it and listening to the way the sound echoed through the layers of the steel hull. It seemed to understand what needed to be done, because it growled its own explanation to Lance, who nodded.

"We're counting on you," he told it. "When I give the signal, break us out of here as fast as possible. There's three dozen of us that have to evacuate."

Almost immediately, and with a huge lurch that threw them all off of their feet and into each other, the submarine burst to the surface. The bottom dropped out of all of their stomachs—they were on top of a wave, riding it downwards—and then the vessel seemed to scream with pain as it slammed sideways into something unyielding. Had they not all been on the floor already they would have been knocked down, save for Dragonite, and Lance was the first to scramble back to his feet.

"Now, Dragonite! _Do it!"_

Dragonite smashed into the roof, a powerful wind rushing over everyone as it beat its wings and shoved. Its raw strength alone was enough to dent the metal visibly, and then its claws glowed; it ripped its way upwards through the steel with frantic speed, as if it had been buried alive and were burrowing upwards to find the surface before it ran out of air. Lance edged out of the way as a piece of the ceiling fell.

"Everybody get ready to get out of here!" he yelled over his shoulder; beyond Ash and his friends he could see the grunts already lined up behind Courtney. "Dragonite, keep at it!"

"Pikachu," said Ash, "help Dragonite out!"

Dragonite broke through to the outside. A deluge of rain poured into the newly-opened rift in the submarine's top, hissing as it began to cool the torn and twisted metal. Dragonite's glowing claws ripped through layer after layer of steel, slashing it apart like sackcloth, widening the fissure and knocking pieces of metal and piping outside, scattering torn electrical wire. A Thunderbolt from Pikachu blasted away another piece of the inner layer of the hull, the electricity crackling brightly through the water sloshing along the bottom of the tilted floor. Though the lights in the corridor had completely gone out, they had no trouble seeing; every few seconds, the glare of lightning burst through the widening hole in the roof and side of the sub.

"Just a little more, Dragonite!" Lance hollered, as a peal of thunder rattled through the submarine and water sloshed through the wound in its top. "One more go!"

Dragonite flew outside to better pry away a piece of the shrieking metal hull, assisted from the inside by Pikachu's Thunderbolt. When it came off Dragonite threw it aside like wrapping paper being ripped from a box, and in that moment, with Dragonite suspended above the exposed innards of the submarine and rain pouring inside as if from a hose, a roaring noise pierced them all: a sound that everyone who had been at Monsu Island had heard again in their dreams. Lance climbed out of the submarine at once, and Dragonite scooped him up and tossed him onto its back; he released his Gyarados into the water even as he yelled, _"Get out, now! Hurry!"_

No one needed to be told twice. Archie grabbed the bundled Orbs with one hand, hauled himself up through the submarine's shattered interior, and dropped into the shallows outside, scrambling up the waterlogged street, the rain soaking him through in moments. Shelly followed, then Maxie and Tabitha.

Since the sea level was fairly deep inside the crater, the harbor of Sootopolis had been entirely artificial, floating wooden docks and concrete pillars providing the framework around which all of the city's ship traffic anchored. Severe storms were such a rarity inside the crater that the harbor had not been designed to survive them, but this storm would have destroyed even a structure which had; every boat that had been in the harbor, and the whole harbor itself, and the entire arching stretch of wide dock that buffered the city proper from the waterline, had been smashed to pieces by Kyogre's waves. The result was an enormous swathe of debris piled where the harbor had been and extending up into the city, so that the front of the sub now lay in the street at an angle, its back end resting atop broken boats and other wreckage. The waves that hit it pushed and pulled at it violently, as if it were a twig lying in the shallows on a beach that the tide could not decide whether to reclaim.

Ironically, the sheer extent of the surrounding destruction aided them. There would have been no way to get from the submarine up onto land had the sub not been hammered so hard into the debris field that it had become more or less enmeshed in it. Though ripped open, the hull was kept from slipping off of the street and sinking away into the churning water by the sheer amount of other large objects around and below it; it would not hold long, but it bought them all the two minutes they needed to evacuate, and would otherwise not have had.

As the heavy waves hammered the shell of the damaged sub, everyone scrambled out of it into the rain, helping each other in a half-panic without regard for who was who. Craig and Stanley grabbed Sierra and hauled her out onto shore, and Stanley stayed a moment to assist Brock, who in turn helped his friends before waiting for Brooke. When Brooke slipped on the wet metal, Brock caught her hand and pulled her up, helping her scramble out of the submarine and drop to the wet ground with a splash. The last people to leave were Courtney and Matt; Matt had to actually make a short leap as a strong wave shoved the sub forward and then dragged it halfway back into the sea, and the very next wave carried it just far enough back into the water for it to start to fill.

The surface of the sea foamed as if boiling as all the air inside the sub was displaced. Maxie did not even watch as the very last trace of Team Magma's assets disappeared with a bubbling groan beneath the heaving water, the M on the hull vanishing as it sank to whatever grave it would find deep in the hollow of the Sootopolis volcano. Floating debris immediately filled the giant empty space on the surface where it had been.

If there was anything to be grateful for as they all huddled in the flooding street, suddenly pounded by rain and deafened by thunder, it was only that the wind was not nearly as powerful as a normal storm this size ought to have generated; apparently Kyogre did not care about creating anything other than the rain and the huge swells that came rolling into the harbor from the middle of the crater, breaking hard against the faces of buildings. But no one paid much attention to the rain (which came down in sheets), nor to the waves that pounded below them, the bed of wreckage the Sootopolis harbor had become, or even the thunder and lightning that exploded so often and so close about their heads. Only one thing had drawn their attention, and all those who had not seen it once before (and not a few who had) gawked with open mouths, shaking where they stood, drinking rain without noticing.

Out in the churning harbor, in the very center of the crater, Kyogre and Groudon fought.

Kyogre could only be seen as a heaving mass of water; it swam just below the surface, circling Groudon, which stood on a huge mound of hardened, glowing lava with its jaws open, waiting to spit mud or fire as soon as Kyogre revealed itself. Steam billowed all around Groudon's island, showing where it kept magma bubbling up from the depths of the once-dead volcano to prevent Kyogre from swimming too close. Darkness obscured the two from view for only a few seconds; another ball of lightning danced through the roiling clouds, making its way the full length of the crater, and in the long bright whiteness everyone could pick out other figures there on the water, smaller than Kyogre and Groudon, flitting in and out of their reach like buzzing insects.

Groudon swatted at something by its side. It missed, and received instead some kind of attack that hit the back of its scaly head, stunning it, making it snarl.

Lance clung tightly to Dragonite, hovering in the rain, counting and recounting those below and coming up with the right total both times. In the sea nearby, his red Gyarados spat a Hyper Beam into the rolling debris, trying to get to open water.

"All of you, _get to higher ground!"_ he was yelling. "Go to the Gym! Go to Juan's! _Now!"_

The rain and thunder stole most of his voice, but he jabbed a finger up the side of the crater, and everyone understood. With another call that no one could hear, he was gone, Dragonite shooting away so quickly that the rain soon made it nearly impossible to see them. Gyarados dove and disappeared, its massive red tail smashing apart half an upturned fishing boat.

"Everyone stay together!"

Tabitha had thrown his hood back and roared at the whole crowd, and the half dressed in red paid attention; Shelly took his cue.

"Follow us! Quickly!"

She had to practically scream to be heard, but when the two commanders beckoned and started away further up the street, their terrified subordinates—and Ash and his friends—had the sense to follow through the rain. They ran.

Water cascaded over their shoes and splashed around their legs as the lot of them—what was left of Teams Aqua and Magma, and a handful of kids who always found themselves in the middle of things_—_scrambled up the sloping streets of Sootopolis; it was like trying to sprint uphill through a brook. Looking down made it impossible to see where to go next; looking up sent rain into their faces, and down their throats when they gasped for breath. Looking back (which some of them did, when they paused to cough and shiver) showed the harbor further and further below the higher they climbed, the lightning above so frantic that they could see clearly more often than not. Kyogre and Groudon sparred ceaselessly, and once there was a small shockwave through the earth that knocked them all down: Groudon had used Fissure. When the attack hit the crater wall opposite the city, a thin crack opened in the base of it, like a blemish in fine china.

They ran.

The storm raged, and unlike Monsu Island, there could be no respite. Groudon could not call upon the power of the sun when the Earth had turned her face away from it, and so Kyogre had an advantage at night; though gaps sometimes appeared in the clouds above, passing under a blank patch of stars offered no relief from the rain. The higher they climbed, the slower going it was, as exhaustion set in and the rain leeched away their energy. But they also encountered people—for Sootopolis had been cowering beneath Kyogre's storm for nearly three days, and though the arrival of Groudon earlier had intensified the weather, it was still not enough to keep every soul huddled beneath shelter. People and Pokémon stood on rooftops and in doorways and some right in the middle of the steep streets, defying the rain and thunder, watching the battle down in the harbor below.

"_Come on, red guy!" _a man screamed over a balcony railing, as Ash and his friends passed beneath; his Pelipper flapped beside him._ "Kick his ass!"_

They ran.

Archie, Shelly, Maxie, and Tabitha led the way, for the latter three knew it best, and Matt and Courtney and the grunts followed behind. When someone stumbled and fell with a splash, their closest teammate hauled them to their feet; Tabitha and Shelly both turned every few minutes and took headcounts. They climbed, and staggered, and stumbled and fell and picked themselves up and stumbled again, dodging debris that had clogged the less steep streets in the two days of rain that Kyogre had brought to bear while it waited for Groudon's arrival. After a while the relentless cacophony became white noise that startled them only rarely.

They ran, and when they could almost run no further beneath the blows of the storm, Matt got close enough to Archie to be able to be heard when he yelled.

"_Where are we goin', boss?"_

Archie answered him by pointing to Shelly; she noticed, and answered by pointing straight ahead, to where the street they had turned onto opened up into a gated clearing. They reached it within a minute. As lightning struck the rim of the crater far above them, those who did not know where they were had a brief impression of a tall, wrought-iron gateway before Brendan's Swampert's Take Down hit it with such force that the lock snapped clean away.

They all followed each other through the garden, or what had once been a garden but was now a field of mud, Swampert returning to its Pokéball. Water pouring from the eaves of the mansion made it look like some gargantuan fountain, and had they all not already been soaked to the bone, they would have each been drenched as they passed under the waterfall on their way inside—for the door opened for them from within before those in the lead had even stepped onto the porch. Everyone plowed into the entrance hall, tripping over one another, too exhausted to even care where they had arrived as long as it was somewhere, as long as there was a roof over their heads to keep away the endless, blinding rain. A few people fell to their knees, shaking too badly to get up, dripping onto the rug; the sound of the door being calmly shut was lost beneath the thunder.

Sebastian was fully dressed, despite the hour and occasion, and only a little worn-looking. The butler surveyed the packed entrance hall, quite unperturbed that three dozen wet, filthy, exhausted people had just burst into the mansion during a thunderstorm in the middle of the night—as if he had been expecting them, or such things happened so often that this was no cause for concern. He bowed to Shelly, the nearest person he recognized, and said, "Good evening, ma'am. This is a most unexpected pleasure...I had supposed you all would not return to Sootopolis for some time." He tilted his head courteously at Tabitha and Maxie.

"Change of plans," Shelly managed, once she'd gotten some of her breath back. She clutched at a stitch in her side, wincing, then asked, "Can we stay here? Ask Juan."

A long peal of thunder prevented Sebastian from answering right away, and the question seemed immaterial in any case; everyone was already dispersing, staggering away up the stairs and down the hall to collapse wherever they found enough room. Once the thunder ended, Sebastian said, "Master Juan is out, I'm afraid. He has gone to defend the city; I am not certain when, or if, he will return. But I am sure he would have no objection to you taking shelter here, if such is your need."

"Good," said Shelly hoarsely, too shaken and fatigued to add anything else. She squeezed water out of her hair and swept away, calling harshly to a few Aqua grunts in the next room, leaving Sebastian standing in the already-empty entrance hall, the mansion suddenly full of voices, the hallway littered with red overshirts, blue bandanas, and other wet detritus. Without batting an eye, he began to gather them them.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Steven clung to his Metagross, and Lance to Dragonite, hovering feet away from each other. Shielded on all sides from the blinding rain by a Reflect and Light Screen from Metagross, a Barrier from Dragonite, and a shimmering green Protect from Steven's nearby Skarmory, they managed, by shouting, to have something resembling a conversation, right in the heart of the storm.

"_How long has Groudon been here?" _Lance was yelling. "How long have you all been fighting?"

"A couple of hours! We haven't had a break!" Steven's wet clothes clung to him; his pale, rain-soaked face was taut. "Me and Juan and Wallace have been out here ever since Groudon showed up! We thought they might get tired eventually, but these two just won't quit!"

"Is anyone dead?"

"Some of the police! They were helping us before the storm got this bad, we told them to leave it to us when Groudon came!" He waved over in Groudon's direction. "We're just trying to keep them both distracted! They do a lot more damage when they're fighting each other than when they're going for us!"

Lance heeled Dragonite, and it reared back, bellowing and flapping its wings, the new angle giving him as clear a view of the situation as he could hope to have. Groudon stood perched on its island of lava, smoking and sizzling, while Kyogre circled it menacingly, prevented from attacking it both by the hot lava bubbling up below and by the distraction provided by Wallace and Juan. It was something like flies buzzing around a pair of angry Tauros, trying to keep them pawing the earth and shaking their manes, instead of ramming into each other at full power and destroying everything nearby.

"We can't keep this up forever!" Steven yelled to Lance. "We've had some close calls already!"

Lance clenched his teeth and turn to watch Groudon and Kyogre again, not even noticing how he ducked reflexively beneath a sudden blast of thunder. Groudon suddenly spat a Mud Shot in Kyogre's direction, forcing it to dive, but the churning sea absorbed the muck almost immediately. Wallace, clinging to his Milotic in the water, popped into view for the briefest instant as a speck of white on the sea's surface before they both disappeared once more. Lance looked up into the tumultuous sky, shimmering through the haze of protective barriers.

"I think Groudon could clear away this storm if the sun was up!" he yelled at last. "We have to try and keep them apart until dawn! Then we can get reinforcements!"

"So we concentrate on Kyogre?"

"Keep going for them both! If Groudon gets a long enough breather now, it'll cause another earthquake, since it can't use Solarbeam!"

Groudon screamed in indignation when Kyogre blasted a Water Spout at it, making it drop to all fours to avoid the blow. Lance and Steven looked at each other, and each man read in the other's face the same thought running through his own mind: it might be impossible to keep Groudon and Kyogre apart until sunrise. Their Pokémon would tire, but they could at least recover themselves relatively quickly, and even return to their Pokéballs for long stretches of rest. Their trainers had no such luxuries.

Lance tried to toss his cape, but his hand clenched around empty air, and he remembered he had taken it off inside the sub. Instead he grit his teeth and clung tighter to Dragonite, which bellowed again, beating its wings furiously in anticipation.

"We have to hold out until dawn!" Lance called to Steven. "No matter what happens!"

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Juan's generator had given out sometime that day, leaving lightning the only reliable way for everyone to navigate their way around the house (Sebastian only had a few flashlights). Luckily a small ball of fire held inside a Houndoom's mouth served just as well as a candle, and Team Magma, at least, settled in quickly, throwing themselves into spare corners or whatever furniture was at hand, pulling off their soaked hoods and trying to get warm. Craig, Sierra, and Stanley did not brave the stairs like most of their teammates, contenting themselves instead with the living room, and using all of the cushions from the sofa to make a passably comfortable sort of camp in the corner of the room furthest from the enormous windows. A strange tinkling sound accompanied every rumble of thunder as the crystal chandelier vibrated.

Craig's Houndoom blew flames onto a sputtering candle held by Sierra, while Stanley's Golbat perched on the back of her sleeping Mightyena. Though Sierra and Stanley sat against the wall, too exhausted to move, Craig was standing, pacing back and forth beside a bookshelf against the wall; after shaking out his wet hair, he snatched up a book and rifled through its pages, as if searching for something he had left between them. The fact that it was a first edition binding of a classic work of turn-of-the-century literature either escaped or did not impress him, and after half a minute, he threw the book aside. It hit Stanley.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Sierra wondered aloud. She shivered, sneezed, and held her hands closer to Houndoom's muzzle; it breathed warmly. "Just hang out here and wait 'til the storm blows over?"

"It ain't ever gonna blow over," Craig said, now pacing in front of the bookcase again. A porcelain Gorebyss paperweight caught his eye; he pocketed it at once.

"You think?" Sierra asked.

"'Course I think! Fuck, Sierra, you think Kyogre and Groudon are just gonna stop fighting down there for no reason? You remember what it was like the first time?"

Sierra shifted uncomfortably.

"Yeah, well," she said, trying to regain some confidence, "you're the one who wanted to come here so bad anyways."

"Me? Fuck no, I wanted to stay where it was safe. Didn't know there'd be another showdown right in the middle of—"

"Are you kidding? You wouldn't ever shut up about finding out what the boss was doing, you were the one who was so excited to see the sub! Stanley, back me up here—"

Stanley said nothing, and Sierra glared at him, only to find that he had started reading the book Craig had thrown. When Houndoom growled, Stanley glanced up, blinking.

"Huh?"

"Ugh, never mind."

She might have thrown another barb at Craig had Commander Courtney not swept in; Courtney gave the three of them a quick glance before scanning the room during a lightning flash and then storming out as abruptly as she'd come, without a word. Craig's Houndoom yawned widely, its flame-filled mouth bright and hot, then swallowed the small fireball it had generated and powered up another, letting Sierra hold her dripping hood up beside its muzzle to try and dry it.

"So it's a dead end," said Craig; Sierra and Stanley both looked up at him.

"Give it a rest, Craig, all right? I don't wanna think about it."

"It's true, though." The chandelier swayed, tinkling in agitation. "We came all this way and it turned out to be the worst fuckin' place in Hoenn we coulda made it to. Looks like Kyogre and Groudon are gonna duke it out here until there ain't nothin' left, and we gotta watch."

"That kinda fits, though."

"Shut the hell up, Stanley."

Thunder rattled the windowpanes.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Tabitha stood in the muddy entrance hall, watching the rain through the narrow windows on either side of the front door, his expression set. He still wore his hood, though it dripped, and was uncomfortably heavy with the weight of water. After a minute he peeled off his gloves, wringing them out onto the dirty floor, and had just stuffed them in his pocket when footsteps sounded in the hall behind; he only heard them when the thunder waned, so that when he turned, Courtney had already arrived. She wiped her boots on the filthy rug, scowling.

"Got the same headcount you did," she told Tabitha, whom she could barely see. "Looks like we're all here in one piece. For all the good that'll do."

Tabitha nodded to her curtly as lightning and thunder blazed and boomed outside, nearly inseparable. Courtney leaned against the balustrade of the curved staircase and fished a cigarette lighter out of a hidden pocket in her skirt.

"Whose place is this again?" she asked Tabitha, toying with her lighter as she studied the antique grandfather clock in front of her. It struck two a.m., and a tiny carved Murkow cawed out twice before retreating back into a hole in the face of the clock.

"Gym Leader's," said Tabitha. "We'd been staying here before."

Courtney snorted, her gaze wandering from the clock to the painting hanging beside it: a school of Alomomola swimming in shallow tropical water, bright and serene.

"Well, as hideouts go, this place ain't bad. Guess you and the boss have been having some kind of crazy-ass adventure, huh?"

She did not get a response to this, and when she looked over at Tabitha it was to find him scowling, regarding her with suspicion. She raised an eyebrow.

"Problem, Tab?"

"Why are you here?" he asked flatly.

"Why? Don't feel like standing outside in this weather, that's why."

Thunder cracked outside as the rain poured yet harder. Tabitha sized her up.

"You know what I mean. Why did you even come out here when you were so hellbent on saving your own skin? Unless you got outvoted."

Courtney flicked her lighter, testing it. Three and then four unsuccessful flicks later, she glared at it.

"Maybe I like you assholes, all right?" she said, not looking at Tabitha as she dropped the lighter back in her pocket.

Tabitha smirked.

"You were worried about us? That's not very Courtney of you."

"Shove it."

Another rumble of thunder—not as loud as some of the others, but taking a good five or six seconds to fade away. When it did, Courtney spoke offhandedly, studying her wet gloves as she pulled them off instead of looking at Tabitha.

"Your old fuck buddy's gone, if you care."

"What are you talking about?"

"Brodie jumped ship in Lilycove," she said, "soon as we got to the Aquas' base. Him and a bunch of other people, ours and theirs both."

Tabitha did not answer this. Courtney glanced up.

"Don't give me that, Tab," she said, off of his expression. "What, you thought I didn't know about you two?"

"That's over," Tabitha said shortly, "and it wasn't—it never meant anything. Ever."

Automatically he glanced towards the study, his expression softening. Courtney gave a sharp laugh that called his attention again.

"So, you finally grew a pair and fessed up? Took you long enough. I thought you were never gonna go for it."

Tabitha frowned. In the sudden darkness he could not read Courtney's expression.

"How did you know?" And then, sharply: "Did Brodie tell you?"

"Did Brodie tell me what? That you fell for the boss harder than a sack of bricks?" A flash of lightning let him see her roll her eyes. "Tab—honestly, how fucking stupid do you think I am? I've known you since the day you joined—was I just not supposed to notice that little detail?"

Tabitha made a small noise of annoyance that was inaudible beneath a peal of thunder which seemed to shake the very framework of the house.

Courtney growled right back at the storm before saying, in the next darkness, "Boss still in there?"

"Yeah."

"Guess we should keep him company, then. Unless you two need some alone time?"

"Shove it."

During the next flash of lightning they both entered the study. Maxie was the only person there, his coat off, standing over at the window with his elbow against it; he rested his forehead against his fist, as if he were so tired he might fall asleep standing up. Courtney lowered her hood.

"Well, boss, here we are," she announced. "Need anything?"

Maxie's baleful smile did not reassure her. He sighed and ran a hand through his wet hair, trying to slick it back.

"Here we are indeed," he mused, as lightning struck the water far away. He glanced outside, then said to Tabitha and Courtney, "You've made the rounds, I take it?"

"Everything's fine," Tabitha said. "No one's acting up."

More thunder. Maxie studied them both, then shook his head and said, "I realize...Well, I'm sorry for involving you both—and the others—in this. This catastrophe is my doing. But for what it's worth...Thank you both for being here. You were always of great help to me—"

"You gave this speech already, boss," Courtney told him, resting one fist on her hip. "Wasn't asleep the first time, don't need to hear it again."

Maxie managed another smile, shaking his head, then turned back to the window.

"Everything we wanted...Everything I dreamed of..."

He did not finish, and thunder would have drowned his words even if he had. Courtney seemed to take this as a cue and threw herself into a leather lounge chair, rummaging in a pocket of her skirt before pulling out a cigarette case. When she opened it, she sat up straight.

"Ah, fuck! My cigs are soaked..._Fuck_..."

She began rifling through them, trying to find any that were salvageable. Tabitha joined Maxie at the window and perched himself onto the windowsill, sitting with his back to the rain. It occurred to him how cold and heavy his still-wet hood was, and he pulled it off, laying it on the windowsill beside him. When he nodded to Maxie, he smiled back, if tiredly.

For perhaps a quarter of an hour, the three of them shared the room in silence, if by silence one discounted the thunder, the distant roar of battle, and Courtney's low, breathless cursing as she sorted her cigarettes. Tabitha and Maxie exchanged looks periodically, and at one point Maxie reached out and squeezed Tabitha's knee, both asking for and giving reassurance.

In the darkness, a spurt of fire from the doorway at last startled them all. A Houndoom had poked its head inside, a Fire Fang glowing inside its mouth to light the way of the grunt beside it, and he saluted out of habit as soon as he knew he had been noticed. As a flash of lightning illuminated the three Magma leaders, Derek looked between them: Maxie, standing by the window with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing out, his wet coat draped over a nearby chair; Tabitha, sitting on the windowsill near Maxie with his red overshirt pulled off, his undershirt clinging to him, running a hand through his hair; and Courtney, still in her uniform but with her hood lowered, propping her muddy boots on an ottoman as she sprawled in a chair, a useless wet cigarette dangling between her fingers. It struck him—as suddenly and powerfully as the next crash of thunder—that he was no longer looking at the leaders of Team Magma, but at three weary people who did not know what to do, who understood no more than him, and who could give him not a single command that would be comforting in its rigid authority.

"What do you want?" Courtney asked. Derek saluted as Maxie and Tabitha turned to look at him.

"I, uh." Thunder cracked again; the grunt waited for it to end. "I came to see about orders, commander. Ma'am."

"It's quite all right." It was Maxie who had answered, turning from the window to look over his shoulder at Derek; without his coat on his silhouette looked strange. "Your instructions are to be comfortable, as best you can. Get some sleep. We're as safe here as we can hope to be in this situation."

This did not seem like much of an order, but Derek saluted anyway. Before he could bow himself out, Maxie spoke again.

"Courtney, would you mind giving things another look? Ensure everyone's settled and that there isn't any trouble."

Courtney grumbled as she hauled herself to her feet. She followed Derek out the door, glancing back at the other two before shutting it behind her, and when she had gone another enormous crack of thunder resonated through the house, making Maxie flinch. Tabitha slid off of the windowsill and stood beside him, listening to the water come down in sheets—for they could not see much except by forks of lightning, and even when it struck all they could make out clearly was rivulets running down the glass, and the sea of mud beyond that had once been the side lawn.

"Well...This is it, I suppose."

Maxie sounded melancholy in the same way he had at the Space Center, that first evening when everything had come undone. The difference now was that Tabitha was not forced to try and counter with feeble, empty reassurances that he himself did not believe; instead he put an arm around Maxie, and Maxie accepted it gratefully, bowing his head and then pressing the side of his face into Tabitha's damp shoulder.

Together they stood before the storm, saying little as the long, dark minutes passed, because nothing that could be said seemed worthwhile. It did feel like going back in time, somehow, returning to where they'd started after pointlessly running in circles. Here they were, gazing down from that cliff on Monsu Island once more, with Groudon and Kyogre threatening to sweep it all away in their lust for battle, and the two of them as they stood there had no more control over the situation than a pair of insects. Rain rushed eagerly down the dark glass.

"I'm sorry, Tabitha," Maxie said at last. A bead of water trickled out of his hairline down the side of his face; he brushed it away. "This whole mess..."

He closed his eyes when Tabitha squeezed him tighter, a bit fiercely. The next stroke of lightning was so close that the flash of it pained him, even through his eyelids; the thunder sounded as if the sky were being tortured. Maxie opened his eyes again when darkness returned, stifling a sigh.

"I have such a strange feeling, Tabitha..." He gazed at what little of the drowning world he could see. "As if this were fated. That is...Because we started this, we have to watch it happen. Do you understand? To see the end...But I suppose that doesn't make sense, does it?"

A great crack of thunder made him shiver. Tabitha leaned in and kissed him, making him sigh.

"I understand, Maxie. But we can't do anything right now. You should try and get some sleep."

"As should you."

Neither of them made any attempt to move away from the window.

Tabitha stared up at the violent sky and suddenly realized Courtney ought to have returned by now, but in the next breath he also realized that she was probably choosing to stay away, to give him and Maxie some time together. Silently grateful, he reached down and found Maxie's wrist, squeezing it.

"Tabitha?"

"Yeah?"

Maxie did not continue; from his expression it seemed as if he'd decided that whatever he'd thought of was not worth the effort. Tabitha understood. After everything they had tried to do in these past ten days, what little they had managed to learn and the less they had managed to accomplish, it did feel oddly fitting, somehow, to have come here to witness Kyogre and Groudon's battle—it was their duty, somehow, as Team Magma. Their last official mission.

Far below—but still close enough to be frightening—Groudon's bellows sounded, answered and then overwhelmed by the relentless fury of Kyogre's storm. Tabitha did not have enough energy left to hate any of it. He held Maxie tighter, his gaze steady, watching the rain come down.


	29. Chapter 29

Time seemed to have stopped. Though the grandfather clock in the entrance hall still worked, it was impossible to believe it was accurate, that this was an ordinary night during a raging storm and not some black doom into which the world had been plunged for eternity. When they had all been huddled in the house for an entire hour it seemed instead like a whole night; as another hour began to slowly creep forward, it might have easily been the start of another day, invisible to them behind the storm clouds.

Despite the din outside, and the general terror of the situation, exhaustion claimed many people. The team grunts and any Pokémon they still had slept in scattered twos and threes throughout the house, sometimes squabbling for territory but generally too tired and frightened to make much fuss. Ash and his friends had set up camp in one of the bedrooms upstairs, the advantage being that they could sometimes see glimpses of Groudon and Kyogre's battle, down in the middle of the crater, though the impression through the rain was indistinct: flashes of red fire, and the sound of roars carried up from the water that mingled with the ever-present thunder. If they slept, it was only for ten or fifteen minute stretches. Max stayed unconscious the longest at one point, for over half an hour, but none of them really managed to find rest. Being half-woken by thunder only to remember where they were and what was happening was enough to keep them preoccupied.

Of the five kids, Brendan was the only one who had not seen this conflict begin on Monsu Island, and so he stared the hardest through the unyielding darkness between lightning strikes, trying to comprehend what was going on below. Sometimes his expression grew fierce, as if every ounce of the trainer in him wanted to run out to the middle of the crater and join the fray, to drive away the ancient Pokémon and take revenge for everything they had made his region endure. Ash seemed to understand his mood.

The silence that had fallen over the five of them was a miserable one, born of being tired and then denied sleep by calamity, but eventually Brendan could take it no longer. He wrung out his hat (still damp, even after over an hour) and addressed Brock, who was sitting on the edge of one of the room's twin beds, watching water run down the windowpanes.

"Brock?"

Brock did not hear beneath the thunder. Brendan waited for it to pass, then tried again.

"Hey, Brock—do you think that Lance is all right out there? I mean, it's been a while now..."

May and Max looked up at him from where they were sitting on the floor, wrapped in a blanket. Brock frowned.

"I don't know," he told Brendan. "But Kyogre and Groudon haven't damaged the city much, so Lance and the other people out there must still be okay_. _We'd all be in big trouble otherwise."

"This seems like pretty big trouble to me," May said. Her Skitty mewed its agreement.

"Yeah," said Max. "I mean, who knows how long this is gonna go on?"

"Maybe it'll be like the first time," said Ash, "and Kyogre and Groudon will go somewhere else."

"I don't know, Ash." Brock shook his head. "Those two ancient Pokémon seem like they met here on purpose. I think maybe this place is important somehow to both of them...Like this city is where they both wanted to come have their big battle."

"Couldn't they have picked somewhere that _we _didn't want to go?" May asked, holding Skitty tightly.

"Well, we've never exactly been good at staying safe."

An enormous crack of thunder underlined Brock's point. The kids all peered together out the rain-streaked window, unable to see through the darkness, but knowing what was out there in it.

"I just wish there was something we could do." Ash's gaze dropped from the window to the floor; Pikachu, perched on his shoulder, agreed tiredly. "Wish we could do something to make them stop fighting..."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Archie had remained in the same sitting room where he had first planted himself an hour ago, pacing up and down, the Orbs at his feet; the high windows gave him a wide view of the seething sky. Several times someone had intruded on him, one of the grunts who had heard of his death and wanted to better study the miracle of his return; unfortunately they all came with a question, phrased differently by each of them but in essence the same, and they all received the same unsettling answer from Archie—one he had never given before.

"There is no plan. We can't do anything. Just get some sleep."

He did not take his own advice, remaining firmly by the window as the heavens raged. Though he allowed himself to sit in an upholstered chair for a few minutes, staining it with mud, when he found his head nodding he forced himself back to his feet to keep his vigil. Sometimes he paced, as if burning what energy he had would in some way be helpful, but there was never any change in the rain, the darkness, or the thunder. It was less a storm, he thought, and more a stage—a violent backdrop for the real conflict going on below, down in the middle of the crater, the echoes of which carried all the way to this house.

In an odd way, after days of endless solitude, this chaos was almost a relief. It was like one of his violent Orb-dreams become real, and it meant he was real, too; Sky Pillar had been so monotonous that he sometimes wondered whether he hadn't actually died, and the physical experience of limbo was simply indistinguishable from being alive. Now he shivered in his wet clothes and paced back and forth, dripping onto the hardwood floor, furious at the sheer magnitude of the situation, and how small and helpless it made him. If he went back to the harbor...

But what good would it do?

The electric clock on the mantelpiece did not work, and the stars were obscured from view by the rain and cloud, so that Archie had no real conception of how long he had stood there before a voice from behind finally pulled him out of his reverie.

"Hey, boss."

Archie turned and nodded to Matt as he approached. Matt ran a hand through his tangled hair, drawing level with Archie while keeping a respectful distance between them, sticking his hands in his pockets and watching the water pour in an unbroken sheet from the eaves of the house. The storm itself—the incessant thunder and lightning—had a oddly numbing quality, relentless in its loud violence, and Matt and Archie said nothing for a while, lost in staring at it.

"Everything all right, Matt?" Archie finally asked. "Everybody laying low?"

"Yeah, boss. Everything's under wraps." Matt scratched at the stubble appearing on his neck. "So...You got us a plan or what?"

Thunder sounded somewhere higher in the storm, rolling right over the house on its way down into the depths of the crater. Archie scowled.

"Thought I did," he admitted, "but not anymore." He rubbed the side of his neck. "Where's Shelly?"

"She's around somewhere. Saw her a minute ago in the hall." Matt paused, waiting for a peal of thunder to die away, then ventured, "She was real freaked out the day you disappeared. Scared the hell outta me when she called up and told me what happened on Monsu." He studied Archie's profile, clear and sharp in the lightning. "So...what was all that about, anyway?"

"All that?" Archie grimaced. "Shit, Matt. I'm an asshole."

This seemed to be explanation enough for Matt, who did not press the subject. Instead he asked, "Well...Did you at least find anything useful while you were gone, boss? Anything that might help us out?"

Archie looked down at Lance's wadded cape.

"No," he said bitterly, and knocked the Orbs aside with one foot, making them slide a couple of feet and come to rest against the wall. Though Kyogre and Groudon fought ceaselessly, the Orbs had given no reaction yet, never glowed even once; it was as if they were being deliberately cruel, denying their power to those who suddenly had a good reason to want it. Archie wondered if perhaps, having rejected the Red Orb once, he would never be able to use it again, like a disease he'd overcome and to which his system was now immune. The irony would be fitting.

"Damn," was Matt's only comment.

It nearly made Archie laugh, so plainly was it delivered. Matt hadn't sounded angry, and didn't look it, either, when Archie glanced up at him. But he had never been one to panic or complain. Matt was by nature a mechanic, a tinkerer, someone for whom practical problems presented an interesting challenge and not an insurmountable obstacle; his conviction that anything could be done if you had the right tools had always meshed well with Archie's conviction that anything could be done if you had the right people. Even now, when there was nothing to be done, he retained (or was at least good at faking) his usual straightforward attitude.

"Sorry for dragging you into this, Matt," Archie told him. "You and everybody else."

"Didn't drag me anywhere, boss. We came here looking and got lucky."

"Wouldn't call this lucky. You guys should've stayed away."

"Well...Can't go back now, can we?" Matt shrugged. "'Sides, team's in this thing together. Always have been. You couldn't've gotten this far without everybody."

A massive blast of thunder rattled the glass in the windowpanes, booming across the sky and mingling with a violent shriek from one of the ancient Pokémon down in the harbor.

"For what that's worth," Matt added. He scratched his chin. "And boss?"

"Yeah?"

"I, er—I locked up your office, after you died. Didn't wanna go through it all right off, y'know...didn't feel right. So everything in there should still be where you left it. Didn't get flooded or anything."

Archie realized what Matt was implying and gave a harsh laugh.

"I don't think we'll make it back to Lilycove anytime soon, Matt. But thanks."

Matt nodded. In the darkness beyond the window, the rain streamed down in an unbroken gray torrent, drops the size of hailstones hitting the glass like shrapnel. A natural storm would have had howling wind, and much less thunder, and there would have been no rhythm to the way the rain stopped and started, eased and grew heavy again; this, however, was purely rain. Endless, steady, oppressively heavy rain, that would stop only on the will of a beast.

"The worst part is," Archie said aloud, ostensibly to Matt but without looking at him, staring into the darkness, "I never even saw all this coming. I never once thought, what if we couldn't..."

He trailed off into a kind of growl, frustrated with himself and all the ways he'd failed. Matt said nothing.

Lightning failed to strike for long enough that the two of them were left in darkness for half a minute. After it had flashed again, and after the thunder had passed, a voice came from behind them.

"Archie?"

Archie and Matt both glanced over their shoulders. Shelly stood framed in the doorway, holding a candle that she set on the mantlepiece of the decorative fireplace. As she approached she said, in a clipped and rather forced voice, as if she were delivering a requested report, "I've done another headcount. All of our people are still accounted for. No disturbances so far, either. Everyone's quiet."

Archie took a deep breath through his nose and sighed before returning his attention to the window. Shelly stepped up between him and Matt, so that they stood in a row in front of the window, watching the rain come down.

It was the first time the three of them had been alone together since before Shelly had left on her mission to infiltrate Team Magma almost two weeks ago. Two weeks, and yet it seemed much longer, as though lifetimes had been lived by each of them in the interim and they had met here again as strangers. After a few minutes, Matt perched himself on the arm of an overstuffed chair, using his bandana to tie back his strawberry-blond hair into a tighter ponytail; Shelly, too, fiddled with her damp hair, carefully wringing it out section by section and dripping water onto the already wet floor. Archie absently rubbed at the shallow cuts Dragonite's claws had made in his side, not noticing how he shivered in his clothes, which had not yet dried.

Lightning flashed and thunder roared, the heavens above and sea below grinding the city between their two angers. Archie, Shelly, and Matt had spent every waking hour of their lives working towards this moment for so long that its total wrongness seemed to press palpably upon them, the weight of how different it was all supposed to have been somehow physical. Kyogre was awake and free, and the three of them were here empty-handed, as powerless as anyone else in Sootopolis looking out their window this night. And there was no arguing with it, no sitting down together (as they had so often done after failure) and bouncing around ideas and making criticisms until the fatal flaw was at last unearthed and dissected, so that the mistake that had cost them success would not be repeated. They _had _succeeded, had done exactly what they set out to do, and had nothing at all to show for it.

The rain fell and the thunder rumbled; the ocean swirled up into the lowest reaches of the city. Perhaps Kyogre would eventually fill up the whole crater, like a bowl; perhaps Groudon would break the crater into pieces instead. They would find out, eventually.

"Matt," said Archie at last, "go get some shuteye. You too, Shelly. No point staying up all night when this could go on forever."

The distant but unmistakeable sound of Groudon's roar came to them, small in their ears, though they knew how loud it must have been to carry all the here way to them. Matt stifled a yawn.

"Will do, boss," he said. "What about you, though?"

Archie frowned and gazed out the window.

"Later," he muttered vaguely, as lightning struck a little closer than usual, momentarily blinding him; he set his jaw.

With a look at the two of them, Matt slid off of the arm of the chair and departed; he would have shut the door behind him, but there was none, as the sitting room opened straight out into the hallway. Shelly made no move to follow him, and Archie frowned at the rain before glancing over to her. Her expression was set, but she still looked exhausted; the whiteness of the lightning made the circles under her eyes more pronounced. He caught his own reflection and realized he looked no better.

"You doing all right, Shelly?" he asked her.

"Hanging in there." She rubbed the side of her face. "Hard to sleep in the middle of this."

"Yeah."

Silence—or as close to it as could be achieved, given the rain and thunder. Archie ran a hand through his dark hair; his bandana was stuffed into his pocket.

"Shit, Shelly. I really thought we could fix this," he said. "Change things here somehow. I knew it was bad, but I thought we'd be able to...Hell, I dunno. Do _something."_

He made a tense noise that was something like a sigh, and scowled defiantly at a burst of lightning that struck the crater rim opposite them, forking off in so many directions that for a fraction of a second it looked like a bright, upside-down tree, burnt into the sky. The boom of its thunder reached them before the impression of it faded from their eyes.

"Is this really what it's been like?" Archie asked, jerking his head at the torrential rain on the other side of the window. "This what's been going on the whole time?"

Shelly nodded. In the next flash of lightning Archie's face looked drawn, tense—and a little confused, as well. His eyes darted over the rain-streaked glass, his brow furrowed, as if he were struggling to understand what it all meant.

"Not as much fun being down in the middle of it all, is it?" Shelly said.

He glanced to her, looking both angry and guilty, and then returned his gaze to the outside. Shelly found his hand and squeezed it; for a long time they watched the deluge together in silence.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Sootopolis cowered beneath the storm, and before the battle going on between the two titans in the center of the crater, which every waking person still watched. Kyogre had been waiting for Groudon here for almost two days, dousing the city with torrential rain in the interim; when Groudon had finally burst forth from the seafloor earlier, the shock had made the earth lurch, and all of eastern Hoenn had already felt the result once more. But Sootopolis had begun to fear the water most.

Physically, it was impossible for the city to drown; the massive hole cut into the side of the caldera to allow ships inside ensured that the water level in the crater was the same as that of the surrounding ocean. But neither Groudon nor Kyogre had any heed for physics, and ever since Groudon's arrival, the water had risen, slowly but steadily. The whole first row of hotels and stores behind the crescent-shaped harbor had been already smashed to pieces and lost to sight as Kyogre willed every drop of water not to flow out to the neighboring sea, and in turn pulled seawater inside the crater walls and kept it there, trying to overwhelm Groudon. Without the sun's help, Groudon could not fight this injustice, and so it had called forth lava from a rift deep below the water—a rift it had torn open to find the magma that still flowed close to the Earth's crust here, far below the ancient, dead volcano. From this it built for itself first a pillar and then a small island of newborn land, increasing it hour by hour to keep Kyogre away, and thus entrenched in their elements the two creatures fought—or would have fought, had they been permitted.

Four men, and their Pokémon, had thus far kept the city whole. Lance and Steven swooped and dove around Groudon, while Wallace and Juan distracted Kyogre, though they aided each other as often as was necessary; all four knew that without outside help, they had no hope of subduing the ancient Pokémon in any meaningful sense of the word. It was work enough to annoy them, keeping their traded blows few and far between, providing whatever diversion was needed to keep them from executing their most powerful moves. Each of them had nearly died more than once, and it was not luck that had saved them, but skill. Any trainer of lesser caliber who might have joined them would have long ago been killed.

As Lance and Dragonite skimmed the surface of the heaving sea, racing alongside Kyogre, Lance lost his grip and nearly fell into the water below; only a sudden reflex corrected him and kept him steady. They'd taken a breather high above the battle, and now Steven was doing the same; when Lance glanced up into the blinding rain, he could spot Steven by the way the fiery light of Groudon's island reflected off of Skarmory and Metagross. Kyogre breached and fired an Ice Beam, aiming for Juan, whom it chased; Juan's Kingdra dodged it easily, dove, and vanished. Groudon roared at Kyogre, daring it to approach; Dragonite swerved up and away to get out of range in case it used an attack.

_Dawn, _was Lance's only real thought. Dawn and then Groudon could clear the storm, and at least ease the rain that blinded them and lower the sea once more; without the storm they would be able to get backup from official forces in the city. He did not know exactly when the sun would rise—five-thirty? Six?—but he knew it was not yet at hand. They had fought, and fought, and fought, yet Kyogre and Groudon were weariless.

Dragonite hovered and bellowed at Gyarados before the sea serpent dove back underwater, some exchange of information that Lance might have understood the gist of had he not been too exhausted to pay attention. But anytime weariness threatened to overwhelm him, there was an easy remedy: one glance over at the distant city, dark and beginning to flood, filled (he knew) with people pressing their faces to the windows, wondering whether the sea would rise high enough to drown them whole, or the earth would suddenly crack open and sink the city in chunks.

Kyogre fired another Ice Beam at Dragonite, which missed. Lance shouted his encouragement to his Pokémon and turned away, making a wide loop around Groudon, which shifted its stance on its island of half-molten lava, the red cracks in it so blazingly bright that they rivaled the lightning. Another bolt of it struck the water on the southern end of the harbor, only a mile away; the sound of its thunder was physically painful. Lance and Dragonite swooped low over the water again, signaling to Wallace.

_Dawn, _Lance thought again, as Groudon bellowed its displeasure. They had to hold out until dawn, and there was plenty of time to fail before then.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Maxie sat slumped in a leather armchair in the study, unable to sleep, though he kept his eyes closed against the constant lightning; it was beginning to give him a headache. The thunder no longer startled him, except the very loudest peals. In fact he was so tired that his fear had subsided, replaced by a kind of half-conscious numbness, an acceptance of the fact that he was here and all of this was happening. It all seemed foreordained, somehow—like everything since Monsu Island had been luring him towards this moment, the clash between Kyogre and Groudon that he had begun without intending it. He was here not because he had decided to come, but because he did not have the right to be anywhere else.

This thought made him sit up, blinking tiredly in the darkness. Perhaps it did not make much difference. Hoenn would perish, drowned by waves and crushed by earth, and the blame was all his. Well, half his. He and Archie...No, not alone, they had each had people at their command...but Maxie did not hold any of his subordinates in the same contempt as he held himself. They had done what they were asked to do because they'd had faith in _him_—as Tabitha had pointed out in this very house, a few days ago (was that really all?).

Maxie raised his head and looked across the room during a lightning strike. Tabitha was asleep, sitting against the wall with his chin buried in his tucked-up knees, his hood thrown back; he had refused to lie down on the sofa, in case Maxie eventually wanted it. On impulse, Maxie pulled himself out of the chair and staggered over. Another flash of lightning shone through the windows at his back, casting his shadow over Tabitha's sleeping form, and though he'd risen with the thought of waking Tabitha for company, he suddenly decided against it. Instead studied him as he slept.

Better to let him rest. He deserved it, after all; for years he had been the one to whom Maxie said _do my will, solve my problems, keep my world working smoothly, _and he had done it without complaint_. _But there was nothing Tabitha could do to solve his problems anymore, and so Maxie resisted the urge to rouse him to hear his familiar words of reassurance.

An odd pang pierced him as he stood there, Tabitha flashing in and out of sight with the lightning. Such an unusual young man...stern and strong and handsome, unfailingly devoted yet not quite whole, somehow, for all his professional confidence. He had given Maxie everything he had to offer, mind and then heart and then body, and he gave it not like a man but like a boy: utterly and clumsily, with an underlying fierceness that sprung from some piece of his past that Maxie did not yet know. And the great irony was that Maxie had had all the time in the world, before now, to know, to ask and care and kiss, yet he'd been so self-absorbed that it had never even occurred to him—not until he'd been stripped of everything else and left only with this one person by his side. Now, with the rain coming down in sheets, Maxie had no idea whether there would ever be time to learn all the things he wished he already knew.

Thunder roared overhead, the sound dying away to be replaced by the smaller, more visceral sound of Groudon. Maxie knelt and laid a hand on Tabitha's hair as though blessing him, then kissed the top of his head. Tabitha stirred, but did not wake.

As lightning blazed through the windows on the other side of the room, Maxie crossed it, having half a mind to pace through the house but settling instead for wandering through the first floor, finding few people awake—though one of these was Sebastian, adding a dash of whiskey to his tea as thunder rattled the cup in its saucer. A candle burned beside the teapot, the light reflecting off of it.

"Do you need something, sir?" Sebastian asked him. Maxie shook his head.

"No." But he considered, then asked, "You wouldn't know the time, would you?"

"Just at four o'clock, by my watch," was the butler's answer. "Rather a long night it's being, I must admit. I'll be glad for the sunup."

Maxie doubted whether that would make much difference, but sighed all the same and excused himself, trudging back down the hall, feeling his way with one hand. He had a vague notion of going back to the den to lie on the sofa when one of the rooms he passed caught his eye during a lightning flash, and he stopped in the hallway, waiting half a minute for another bolt of lightning to illuminate it again.

He had been right: it was Archie, still sequestered in a sitting room, standing by the window with his back to the door, watching the storm. Maxie stepped inside, and somehow Archie heard his footsteps even beneath the rain and thunder; he turned, frowning when he saw who it was.

"What happened?" he asked shortly, evidently assuming Maxie brought news. Maxie scowled.

"Nothing of which I'm aware."

"Then what do you want?"

They stared each other down across the room, or as best as they could given the intermittent light.

"Company," said Maxie at last.

Archie snorted, but did not argue. Instead he turned his attention back to the storm, and Maxie crossed the room to stand beside him, folding his arms; the next lightning strike threw both their shadows all the way across the room and against the back wall. But they were both too tired and overwhelmed to maintain active animosity for long. As the minutes crept by, they each relaxed, their posture weakening; Maxie rested his fist on the glass so that he could lean his head against his forearm and close his eyes, shielding himself from the brightness of the lightning. Archie paced, stopped for several minutes, then started again; Maxie finally surrendered and went to the back of the room, sitting on the floor against the wall. When he did, he and Archie exchanged looks, but said nothing; they did not have to speak to understand one another's thoughts. They were both obligated to stay awake, to drink in every moment of what was unfolding down at the bottom of the crater even if the rest of their teams found sleep.

Archie's frustration only grew as the minutes dragged on. He still somehow had enough energy to fret, and paced in front of the droplet-covered window, looking out of it every time lightning flashed; his shoes squeaked. Maxie alternated between breathing into his cupped hands and frowning across the room at the rain, wincing whenever he could single out the roar of Groudon between claps of thunder. Still, he was exhausted enough that his head came to rest on his knees. When Archie spoke, his voice seemed to come to Maxie through a kind of fog.

"Maxie?"

Maxie looked up, blinking.

"What is it, Archie?"

"We really fucked this thing up."

Maxie breathed onto his hands one last time, then staggered to his feet.

"Oh? Whatever gave you that impression?"

But he joined Archie at the window again, and together the two of them gazed out over the city. Sometimes it seemed as if the lightning that forked through the clouds began not above them, but directly out in front, as if the storm were slowly sinking down to choke the whole crater and everyone in it. Raindrops chased one other down the glass as far below, in the harbor, the two men's feud played itself out on a grand scale—or rather, the ancient feud that Archie and Maxie had entangled themselves with, vainly imagining it was theirs, and that they could have control over it and wield its two armies for their own. The thought was so obviously insane now that it seemed almost funny.

"What have you wrought?" Maxie muttered, his gaze fixed on the red glow in the distance that marked Groudon's island. "Archie..."

"Eh?" Archie glanced to him, frowning. "What do you mean?"

"Look at this. Look at what's happening to this city." Maxie gestured out the window. "This infernal storm...What will happen to the world if this downpour continues for all eternity? The world's landmass will drown in the deepening sea..."

"What have _I—" _For a second, Archie was too indignant to speak, but then he jabbed a finger at Maxie's chest, snarling; exhaustion had made them both sharp at the edges. "Don't get all high and mighty with me! Wasn't it _you,_ Team Magma, that infuriated Groudon? If you bastards hadn't let—"

"We don't have the time to argue about it here!" Maxie had to strain to be heard above a peal of thunder, and when it died away he added, with a burst of venom, "Get outside and see for yourself! See if what you've wrought is the world that we desired!"

"I'm not _blind!"_

More thunder cracked directly overhead, startling them both; Maxie actually ducked a little. Archie gazed out the window, and another lightning bolt momentarily threw his features into relief. With a grimace, he pulled his wet bandana out of his pocket, staring down at it, smoothing his thumb over the bloodstained Team Aqua logo on the front. Then he looked up.

"Fuck it," he said. "We can't just stand here forever. We have to try and do something." He tied the bandana around his head, plastering his hair to his forehead. "This is our fault, Maxie, you and me both. We started this."

"And what on Earth do you propose we do?" Maxie was still gazing down at the distant harbor. In the lull between lightning strikes, Groudon's island glowed brighter as Groudon summoned more lava. "There's nothing that anyone can do. This is going to be the end of the world..."

Archie hesitated.

"We've still got both the Orbs," he said slowly, and nudged the bundle at his feet. Maxie took a second to register this.

"Are you crazy? They don't work. We know that now."

"I don't hear you coming up with any better ideas." Thunder interrupted Archie; when it trailed away he repeated, "You really want to just stare like a fool while Kyogre and Groudon smash the whole damn city to pieces?"

The two of them looked back out towards the harbor. A powerful bolt of lightning cleaved through the blinding rain, showing them, for one instant, the small figure of Groudon silhouetted against the water on its platform of hardened lava, and Kyogre circling around it, its fin cleaving the sea. Then the lightning vanished, and only the red glow of Groudon's island remained.

"It's worth a shot," Archie said. "Worst that could happen is we die now instead of later. I'm sick of standing here."

"And if I disagree?"

"Then I'm gonna go without you."

"Go where, exactly?"

Instead of answering, Archie adjusted his bandana and picked up the bundle containing the Red and Blue Orbs; they clinked together audibly under the sound of the rain.

"Do you ever think anything through?" Maxie demanded, as Archie turned away. "This is practically suicide, and furthermore—"

"Are you coming or not?"

"Of course I'm coming, you idiot, but it's a ridiculously foolhardy idea—"

Archie had started walking, and Maxie followed; when they reached the bottom of the curved stairs Maxie turned away towards another room, and stopped when Archie grabbed his upper arm.

"Where are you going?"

"I have to tell Tabitha—"

"You wanna drag him into this?" When Maxie glared at him, he said, "I'm not telling Shelly. She'll want to come with me."

They exchanged looks—fierce, defiant, and yet with a mutual understanding that made Maxie finally say, with a scowl, "I suppose you have a point."

"They'll be safe here," said Archie shortly. "Come on."

He glanced down the hall after he said this, to where he had last seen Shelly asleep at a table, then shook his head and made for the front door, Maxie ducking into the study first to retrieve his coat, still damp.

No one was in the entrance hall, and so no one saw them go; when the door slammed behind them, thunder drowned out the sound. The only evidence that they had departed was the fresh pool of water just inside the doorway.

On the porch, Archie and Maxie paused, taking stock of the lawn that had long since flooded to become a mire. Then Archie adjusted his grip on the Orbs, and the two men hurried through the downpour, across the muddy ground towards the street that water flowed down like a river—leading away to the harbor, and the base of the crater, and the center of the storm.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Brendan and Ash stood in the rain. The two of them had left their friends huddled on the floor of one of the guest bedrooms, sleeping, wrapped in the covers from the twin beds. Here, on the wrought-iron balcony outside the den across the hall, the two boys could get a better view of Kyogre and Groudon's battle whenever lightning struck, though still only in glimpses. Distant and yet somehow immediate, the sound came to them as a steady roar punctuated by thunder, like a train endlessly passing; sometimes a huge column of white steam exploded from the center of the harbor as Groudon summoned more lava. It was the ancient interplay of earth and sea made swift and furious and terrifying. Groudon was trying to fill the caldera of Sootopolis with land; Kyogre, to flood it.

Brendan ducked beneath the eaves of the house, pressing his back to the glass of the door and wringing out his hat. Ash joined him. On Ash's shoulder, Pikachu shook itself dry.

"This is crazy," Brendan said over the rain, sounding awed. "Completely insane."

"It's just like at Monsu Island." Ash stared at the dueling Pokémon, tiny from this distance. "Only worse."

Brendan glanced out towards the harbor, then shielded his eyes from a flash of lightning close by; when he dropped his hand he plunged back into the rain on the edge of the balcony, as though he'd seen something, and Ash followed suit. Below them, two figures were running across the soaked grass, ignoring the rain.

"Hey Ash—aren't those guys the leaders of Team Aqua and Team Magma?"

"Yeah," said Ash suspiciously; he had to speak loudly to be heard. "What're _they _up to?"

"That's what I'm wondering. Where are they going at a time like this?"

Brendan leaned over the railing, the better to see as Archie and Maxie hurried over the grounds, splashing through six inches of muddy water with every step.

"You think maybe they're trying to get away?"

"I don't know," said Ash. A realization struck him when he saw that Archie was holding something. "Hey—they still have the Red and Blue Orbs. Remember? Lance left 'em with them."

"That's right..." Brendan ducked back under the eaves, where it was a fraction easier to hear. "Wait, so what do you think they're gonna do with them?"

"I dunno," said Ash, "but whatever it is, I'll bet it's not anything good. Those things make Kyogre and Groudon go crazy."

The two boys exchanged looks, then nods. They did not pause in their flight through the house.


	30. Chapter 30

"One more sweep," Courtney told Derek, "just to make sure."

Derek saluted and hurried away, relaying the order to the other handful of grunts waiting at the end of the hall. Courtney swore up and down under her breath, then did another quick inspection of the whole lower half of the house, returning to the entrance hall empty-handed. She only had to wait a couple of minutes for the grunts' return.

"No luck, commander," Derek said, upon approaching. He looked worried. "We checked the Gym, too. Nothing."

Courtney swore again, then waited for a peal of thunder to end before saying, "All right, fine. Go back upstairs, I'll tell Commander Tabitha. Don't spread it around."

Derek saluted, then retreated; Courtney frowned hard as she watched him disappear into the darkness of the hallway, rejoining the others. As lightning blazed harshly through a window, it cast her horned shadow all the way down the hall as she stormed up towards the den, where she found Tabitha asleep against the wall, sitting with his forehead resting on his knees. She nudged him hard in the ribcage with her booted foot, and his head jerked up at once. He stifled a snarl of reproach when he saw it was her.

"Question, Tab," she said, as he staggered to his feet. "What have you done with the boss?"

"That's none of your business," Tabitha said sharply, then realized what she had actually meant as the last of the sleep cleared from his brain. "Wait—he's not here?"

"I can't find him." She grimaced. "Been looking all over for twenty minutes, checked every room in the house. He's gone."

This woke Tabitha completely. His gaze darted across Courtney's exhausted, scowling face, trying to see whether she might, for some reason, be lying; the rest of the den behind her was empty.

"Are you absolutely sure he's not here?"

"Yeah. Had some of the guys turn the place upside-down. Looks like he split."

"Where? When? Why?"

Courtney shrugged. Tabitha hesitated for only a second before shoving past her and hurrying out into the entrance hall; he took the stairs two at a time, ignoring whatever Courtney barked at him as he flew past the row of oil paintings along the stairway. Some gut instinct told him, loudly and immediately, that she was right, but he had to check for himself—maybe she'd missed him—what time was it now? When was the last time he'd seen Maxie? He'd been there just a moment ago, when Tabitha had fallen asleep—it was only a moment ago—

Tabitha was not one to panic, but there was no other word for the horrible sensation that bubbled up inside him as he hurried down the second story hall, growing ever more alarmed as room after room revealed itself empty of the most important thing in the world. Maxie couldn't be gone. Why would he be? If he had left, he would have said something, given orders—but why would he leave in the first place?—he was not the sort to just disappear—

Empty, empty, empty—it didn't matter who was there, any room without Maxie counted as empty—Tabitha's glancing in startled a group of grunts in one room and the children huddled in another, but he was gone before anyone could say anything to him. The hall seemed impossibly long. When he reached the end of it he threw open the last door, staring at what was behind it: a linen closet. Empty.

But he couldn't be gone. Maxie wouldn't do that, would never—maybe Courtney had missed him downstairs. That had to be it.

Footsteps behind him made him whirl. It was Commander Shelly, looking harried, and at once he barked, "Where's Maxie?"—in an accusing voice, as if she would know, or care. At the same moment, she made her own demand: "Have you seen Archie? He's missing."

There was a long pause, filled by a crack of thunder and the never-ending sound of rain. A realization passed between them.

As one Tabitha and Shelly turned and looked out the high window beside them, hit so hard by such a deluge of rain that it seemed a wonder the glass had not shattered. Neither of them could see much beyond the garden, not even in the brightest lightning, but their minds went to the bottom of the crater, and the storm-tossed harbor where Groudon and Kyogre dueled.

"You don't think..." Shelly watched rivulets pour down the dark glass. "They both went back down there? To try and do something."

"Maxie wouldn't do that," said Tabitha at once.

"Archie would."

Again they exchanged looks. Lightning flashed; Shelly swore and pressed a palm to her temple.

"You think they left without telling us?" Tabitha asked her.

"Of _course_ they left without telling us—oh, damn it, that reckless—"

"Let's go," said Tabitha at once.

Shelly looked to him sharply; thunder cracked outside.

"I have to tell Matt," she said at once. "Give me a minute."

Tabitha nodded, and together they half-ran back down the hall, the sound causing a few people to poke their heads out of rooms to see what was happening, though neither stopped to explain. At the base of the stairs, they found Courtney, looking indignant.

"What are you doing?" she demanded of Tabitha. "I told you he wasn't upst—"

"I'm going after Maxie," Tabitha said, as Shelly sped away. "We think he and Archie went outside. Keep everyone here."

Courtney only looked amused for a fraction of a second before realizing he was serious.

"Are you crazy? You can't just le—"

"I'm going," he said sharply. "I'll be back soon with Maxie."

"Damn it, Tab, are you out of your mind?" she called after him, rooted to the spot even as he whirled and departed. "Tab! _Tabitha!"_

Shelly had found Matt where she had seen him last, half-asleep in a chair in the dining room, and her approach woke him despite the competing noise of the storm. He sat up straight at once, rubbing the side of his face.

"Hey, Shelly, what's—"

"Archie's gone," she said. "I don't know how long ago he left, but he and Maxie aren't here. They took the Orbs."

Matt absorbed this, then gained his feet, his expression tensing.

"What...Where do you think they went?"

"To the bottom of the crater," said Shelly. "That's my guess. I think they might try to stop the battle. I'm going after them—Commander Tabitha's coming with me."

Again Matt took a moment to absorb this; his brain still seemed to be fighting sleep. He pressed the heel of his hand to the side of his head, wincing, then said, "All right. What do you need me to do?"

"Nothing—just keep everyone under control here. Only tell people if they ask."

"Do you need any Pokémon? We've got a few."

Shelly hesitated. Thunder roared.

"Yes," she said at last. "Hopefully we won't need them, but if we run into trouble..."

Matt nodded and pulled pair of Pokéballs from his pocket, then said, "I'll go round up a couple more. Gimme a minute."

"I'll be in the front," Shelly answered, and Matt swept past her, looking grim.

Tabitha was already waiting in the entrance hall again, Courtney standing with her back against the balustrade with her arms folded, glaring at him. As soon as Tabitha saw Shelly, he asked, "Are you ready?", but she gave a short jerk of the head, then managed, "Matt's getting us Pokémon."

"What are you two gonna do out there?" Courtney asked, looking between them. "What if you don't find 'em?"

"Then you'll be in charge," said Tabitha, "because I'm not coming back without him."

Courtney snorted, but said nothing more.

Matt appeared half a minute later, tossing Shelly a couple of Pokéballs, which she caught and passed to Tabitha without comment. Tabitha started for the door, and Matt said to Shelly, "Be careful, all right? Come back if you can't find them. Don't stay out there forever."

Shelly nodded stiffly, then wrenched open the front door, letting in a scattered sheet of rain that had been blown beneath the porch. Tabitha had to slam the door behind him to make sure it stayed fast, and with no more ceremony than that, they were gone, leaving Courtney and Matt in the wet and mud-spattered entrance hall, watching lightning come through the narrow windows on either side of the front door. A single pane of glass had been rattled loose by the constant bombardment of heavy thunder, and now rain leaked through it in spurts, creating a widening puddle that would have soaked the rug had it not already been completely ruined. Courtney uncrossed her arms.

"These fucking _people,"_ she muttered; Matt did not argue. Neither of them paid attention to the calls coming from upstairs, or the sound of footsteps running from room to room.

"Ash? _Ash!"_

"Brendan? Hey, Brendan! Where are you?"

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"_Now what do we do?"_

Archie spat out rain in answer to Maxie's shouted question. They stood underneath the awning of a building that had once been a block up from the harbor, but was now on the water's edge; sometimes waves slammed so close that they left objects strewn at their feet, and salty spray hit them both like grapeshot. They had run, slipping and stumbling, all the way back down through the soaked city, and now they could run no further. Across the churning black water, Kyogre and Groudon still screamed at one another, though they traded blows infrequently; the trainers kept them both occupied. Archie spat again.

"I don't know," he admitted, setting his jaw and watching the melee. From this distance he could barely guess who was who, picking out Lance and Dragonite as they swooped and dove, dancing around Groudon; the glow of its island of lava looked like hellfire. Lightning struck the water.

"The sea is rising!" Maxie hollered over the tail end of a thunderclap. "If we stay here too long, we'll—"

A wave crashed against the street beside them, leaving behind a handful of splintered planks that might, at one point, have been part of a water taxi. Archie kicked a plank away, still glaring out across the water, towards the fight they could not join. In one hand he clutched Lance's cape, tied into a bundle, heavy with the silent weight of the Red and Blue Orbs. Another wave sprayed them both.

"We can't keep standing here!" Maxie insisted; for an answer, Archie unfastened Lance's cape. In the next flash of lightning the two Orbs shone: red as a dull fire and blue as the calm sea, cold and dormant, yet strangely alluring. For a brief moment, Archie had the wild notion that if he only gazed deep enough into one of them, it would show him the way of things, like a crystal ball. He scowled and looked over at Maxie.

"Here."

He plucked out the Blue Orb and handed it over, Maxie accepting it with a grimace, as though it were an unlit bomb. Archie tossed Lance's sodden cape over one shoulder, the Red Orb clutched in his other hand, and when another fork of lightning struck across the crater, the light that filtered through both the Orbs shone across their faces. Maxie frowned at the Blue Orb.

"We need to get closer!" Archie told him. "They won't do anything from this far away!"

"And how do you suppose we'll—"

"_Hold it right there!"_

Archie and Maxie stared at each other with identical startled looks, as though each wondered whether the other had somehow shouted this. Then they both turned to face the sound of splashing footsteps coming from behind him, and suddenly two boys emerged from the gray rain to duck under the shelter of the awning, both soaking wet, one with a Pikachu riding on his shoulder. The other boy bent double to catch his breath before straightening again.

"What the hell are you kids doing here?" Archie asked, recognizing them. Instead of answering, Brendan and Ash exchanged determined looks, then simultaneously adjusted their hats.

"What are you guys gonna do with those two Orbs?" Ash demanded, dripping wet. "Why'd you run away from the Gym?"

"We aren't running away," Maxie said. "And what do you think—"

"Can you get us out there?" Archie asked the pair of them, pointing behind him into the rain, towards the battle in the harbor.

This made Maxie cut himself off. Brendan regarded him.

"What if we can? What do you want to do out there?"

"We want to help."

Ash and Brendan exchanged looks; so did Archie and Maxie.

"So do we," admitted Ash, after a peal of thunder. "Help, I mean."

"Good," said Archie gruffly. "Then let's go."

"Not so fast," said Brendan. "What are you two trying to pull? Why do you want to help out all of a sudden?"

"Pika_chu!"_

Pikachu's comment startled Ash; he glanced to his friend, perched on his shoulder.

"You really think we can trust these guys, Pikachu?"

Pikachu exchanged looks with Archie, then nodded at Ash, its paw clenching into a fist.

"_Pi!"_

Ash did not look completely convinced, but Pikachu said something else, and he adjusted his hat again. A wave splashed around their feet.

"Well, if you say so, buddy." He turned to Brendan. "Do you think Swampert can carry all of us?"

For an answer, Brendan summoned it; it smashed some junk out of the way with its powerful forelegs before wading down the street into the water, looking back at them with its broad maw half-open. Its damp skin glistened in a flash of lightning.

"We gotta get out there, Kip," Brendan told it. "You think you can make it?"

Swampert nodded, growling. Brendan scrambled onto it, Ash right behind him; Archie and Maxie followed suit, still holding the Orbs. A rushing wave brought the remains of a street vendor's stall towards them; Swampert blasted it away with an Ice Beam, the chunk of ice spinning away to slam against the side of a half-submerged café.

"Let's do this," said Brendan. "Move it, Kip!"

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The fighters on the water had not been hoping for much—not to defeat Kyogre or Groudon, certainly, they were far too powerful—and so they had kept their attacks conservative, measured, trying to pace themselves and save their strength so that they had a better chance of surviving the storm. But each of them had inwardly hoped for _something, _some eventual sign of weakness or fatigue from Kyogre and Groudon, as the thunder roared and the sea heaved and the two great creatures screamed and screamed their mutual jealousy over the other's expanding territory. But there was nothing. Their wrath continued undiminished, and Steven and Lance circled Groudon, Steven on his swift Skarmory with the heavier, slower Metagross following behind, levitating itself. Beneath Lance and Dragonite, Gyarados kept pace, though sometimes it diverted its attention to Kyogre when Juan or Wallace seemed in danger.

On a signal from Lance, Dragonite shot upwards into the rain, away from the immediacy of the fight, and Steven followed, Metagross remaining behind to deflect any attack that might be sent up their way. Skarmory and Dragonite hovered close enough together so that their riders could hear each other when they shouted, and Steven leaned forward across Skarmory's long neck, coughing up rain before yelling, as loudly as he could manage, "We have to try something else!"

Lance waited for the thunder to end before yelling back.

"What do you have in mind?"

"We can't keep this up forever, one of us is going to get taken out before morning!" Steven argued. "We have to try and hit them with paralysis or something! Wear them down!"

"Groudon's immune to electricity! And we can't get close enough!"

Steven looked down. The rain looked strange from this angle, coming down much straighter than it ought to have, since there was hardly any wind. The swirling sea changed hues as lightning caused the shadows of the high wave crests to darken the deep valleys between them. Kyogre's dorsal fin cleaved the water like some overgrown Sharpedo, far off to the right, and directly beneath them Groudon lowered itself to all fours for a few seconds, snarling, looking around for the smaller creatures that had annoyed it for so long. Steven adjusted his grip on Skarmory's neck.

"If I get in close, Skarmory can try for Toxic!" he called to Lance. "If we get some poison in it, it might slow its reaction time!"

"Will Groudon even feel a Toxic?"

"No idea!" Steven's face showed strained and white in a flash of lightning. Lance grit his teeth, weighing their options.

"We'll distract Groudon!" he yelled at last; Dragonite saluted its agreement. "Get as close to its head as you can!"

Steven nodded, and Skarmory swooped away, Metagross following once they had passed it; its psychic powers kept it airborne, though it was much slower than Skarmory. Dragonite folded its wings and dove, Lance clinging tightly to it to reduce drag, and they pulled out of the dive just in time to swoop horizontally in front of Groudon, not six feet away from the end of its snout. It snorted fire and followed them with its yellow eyes, interested.

For several hours Groudon had been teased and jabbed by these small flying irritants, but like its real enemy, they had stayed infuriatingly out of range—until now. Groudon's pupil dilated, and it screamed at Lance and Dragonite before swatting at them with a huge claw; it missed. As it righted itself, Steven urged Skarmory in closer, knowing its keen eyes could see better than him through the rain, and Metagross followed them.

"Stay in its blind spot!" Steven yelled; Skarmory obeyed, swerving when Groudon turned its head so that they hovered right behind it, out of sight. But the slower Metagross caught Groudon's attention, and it had to Protect itself, shuddering under a glancing blow from the enormous creature.

"_Now!" _Steven roared at Skarmory.

They dove. Rain lashed Steven's face so furiously that he could not see, and he grit his teeth and held on tightly, trusting his Pokémon. He felt Skarmory quiver as it powered up the Toxic attack inside its body, storing up enough to try and make some kind of impact on its huge opponent—and then they swerved, and there was a sound like a boulder dropped upon a piece of thick sheet metal. Skarmory squawked, swerving again and slowing down; Steven forced himself to try and see.

Metagross was twenty feet away, between them and Groudon, all four of its clawed arms raised above it, its body glowing faintly. Steven knew at once Groudon had spotted them, and would have knocked them out of the sky had Metagross not caught its claw with Psychic. Groudon snarled, then wrenched its claw free, spitting a burst of Mud Shot at the passing Lance and Dragonite, who dodged and answered with a Hyper Beam that did not faze it.

Metagross hovered away, or tried to, but Groudon swatted at it again; once more it used Psychic to arrest Groudon's claw just before it made contact. For a moment Groudon hesitated, rumbling, puzzled by this strange floating thing it could not seem to knock down. Then it opened its maw.

The Fire Blast blazed like a concentrated explosion. Steven and Skarmory were thrown back by the sheer force of the heat as the column of flame smashed Metagross like a jackhammer, slamming it all the way down to the island of hardened lava on which Groudon stood—and then the ground cracked and opened, fresh magma boiling up to engulf the screaming Metagross even as the rain hissed against the lava, creating a veil of sulfurous steam.

Skarmory plunged into the steam cloud, Steven's eyes shut tightly to keep him from going blind, and when Skarmory screeched he understood what it meant and aimed in that direction. Beneath the thunder and Groudon he could not hear the tiny noise of the Pokéball's recall mechanism activating, but he knew the feeling in his hand when it had worked, and once Skarmory emerged from the steam and flew away high Steven gasped for air, the rain cooling his burning skin, his only coherent thought that Metagross could not yet be dead, because the Pokéball would not have been able to return it otherwise.

In the water, Kyogre circled and circled again, desperate to attack and yet afraid to approach Groudon's hot fortress. Had it been undisturbed it would long ago have built a huge wave to topple Groudon—and in consequence, smash the city behind—but for hours now it had had no opportunity. There were _things _everywhere, above and below the surface, pecking at it like overgrown Remoraid, and every time it decided to try and catch one, another appeared to divert it. The water was rising, yes, but not fast enough. Groudon still stood free upon the land it kept defiantly creating more of, the heat from its island of lava keeping the wary Kyogre away. It had tried many times to destroy Groudon's island from below, diving even to the depths of the crater to try and freeze or stopper the vent on the seafloor, but to no avail. So it summoned the rain, and raised the water, and circled the enraged Groudon, which was at a disadvantage but by no means helpless in the absence of the sun.

Wallace followed alongside Kyogre at a distance, soaked to the skin, riding on the back of his Lapras and waiting for the right moment to strike. On a call from him, Lapras charged up and fired an Ice Beam that grazed the surface of the sea near Kyogre's dorsal fin, leaving a streak of shining ice that the waves immediately began to melt and break apart—a near miss. Kyogre's fin disappeared; Lapras dove, and Wallace with it, holding onto its shell.

Though Lapras had been fighting without pause for many hours, it still looked strong and fresh, its body gleaming underwater in a flash of lightning. This was an ability it had been born with: to absorb water attacks and turn them to energy for its own use. Before it had met its trainer, that ability had kept it able to swim for days on end without sleep as its pod migrated across the globe, and now it allowed Lapras to block an underwater Water Pulse from Kyogre and break the surface with less harm done than would have otherwise been the case. But as trainer and Pokémon sank down into the dark valley between two high waves, Lapras screamed and thrashed its head, and Wallace knew at once what had happened: the Water Pulse had confused it. Kyogre's fin reappeared.

"Go recover, my friend!" Wallace told it, yelling as it whined with pain. "Do you understand me? Go and come back when you've healed!"

Lapras nodded—it had understood the order, even through its confusion, though it suddenly thrashed its neck and whined again; the chaos of the storm was too much to try and process. Wallace crouched on its shell, as if preparing to stand and surf the wave that Lapras was riding as it built higher and higher, but he signaled to the passing Steven and Skarmory, and they flew close. At the crest of the huge wave, Wallace leapt from atop Lapras, catching hold of Skarmory's steely leg and swinging himself up onto its back behind Steven. Skarmory dodged the wall of water as it came rolling down, sweeping away to be replaced by another, and Lapras dove, disappearing. Wallace's cowl tore on Skarmory's sharp feathers.

"Lapras is out for the moment!" he told Steven.

"Metagross is down too!" Steven yelled back, "and I can't use Aggron out here!"

"We've got to regroup, otherwise we'll—"

Skarmory swerved out of the way of a Fire Blast; it missed them widely, but the heat of it still seared their backs. Steven took them upwards, out of Groudon's immediate view, and Lance and Dragonite exchanged Hyper Beams with Groudon, Groudon's dominating easily and forcing Dragonite to dodge as it blasted the water, sending up spray. Dragonite panted.

"You doing okay?" Lance asked it, aware that he himself was faring little better; his hands gripping Dragonite's scales shook. "Hang in there, it's not over yet—"

Lance choked on rain. Something floating on the water below had caught his attention, and for a split-second he could not even understand what he was seeing, so great was his shock and exhaustion and sheer disbelief. Then he came to himself and gaped. Ash Ketchum—it was definitely Ash—and the other boy Brendan, both on Swampert, and riding along with them—

"_What are you two doing?"_ Lance roared.

"We've got the Orbs!" Archie yelled back. He waved the Red Orb in one hand; Maxie had the other. "We're trying to—"

"_That is NOT HELPING!"_

Dragonite swerved out of the way of a waterspout, then shot a Thunder Wave back at Kyogre; it missed, lighting up a stretch of water before fizzling out. Juan darted forward instead on Kingdra, doubly fast in the rain and too quick to see; its own Twister made contact, forcing Kyogre to dive to avoid the full force of the attack, which became another waterspout that extinguished itself almost at once. Juan and Kingdra plunged underwater after Kyogre.

"Get us closer!" Archie yelled at Brendan. Brendan held onto his hat with one hand and Swampert with the other, urging it forward, and it rode a swell up high before plunging down the front side of the wave like an expert surfer.

Kyogre emerged nearby, the upper half of its body exposed as it floated on the surface, and whenever lightning struck, its round yellow eye gleamed brightly. Archie's attention was on it at once, but Maxie stared forward, at the island of cracked and hardened lava whose intense heat he could feel on his face even from this distance. Veiled by steam, Groudon stood reared on its hind legs, roaring up at the sky. Though it was only two or three stories tall, it looked from here as if its scaly head touched the bottoms of the clouds. Maxie clenched the Blue Orb tighter with one hand and Swampert's back with the other, holding the Orb up through the rain, as if offering it to Groudon.

"G...Groudon! Please! Stop what you're doing!" He could barely hear himself. "I know the extent of your power now! If you keep going, all Hoenn, not just Sootopolis, will be utterly ruined!"

Groudon gave no reaction; in fact it did not seem to notice Swampert at all, riding the high waves ten yards away, a small blur on the water. The tiny, insane spark in Maxie that had expected a miracle was instantly snuffed out. He had devoted his life to finding this magnificent creature, and it cared no more for his wishes than did the bedrock of the earth. Team Magma, and all his grand plans, every law he had ever broken and every sacrifice he had ever made, his decision long ago to separate himself from society if that was what it took—all this meant absolutely nothing to the furious Groudon, nothing at all, and when it roared it was as if the earth herself had done it, and Groudon was merely mimicking the sound.

Beside him, Archie fared no better.

"Kyogre! What's wrong? Look over here!" he was yelling, with a helpless desperation that would have been unlike him in any other time and place. "It's the Red Orb! Calm down! _Kyogre!"_

He stared with wide eyes at the Red Orb, willing it to do _something, _anything, to tame the savage beast parting the water only a determined stone's throw away. He would undergo possession again if it would make a miracle, if it would be enough to convey his will to Kyogre and force it to settle down, but though he concentrated on it with all his might for several long seconds, the Orb did not react. Archie grit his teeth, then called up at Lance, yelling straight into the driving rain.

"It's no good! It's not responding at all!"

"_I know that!" _Lance bellowed. "Now go back to shore before you _both get killed!"_

A bubbling hiss drowned out all speech, and the world turned white just in front of them; Groudon had willed for more lava, and as it exploded to the surface it created a wall of opaque steam, boiling hot and choking with sulfur, so that Dragonite and Skarmory had to veer out of the way to keep their riders from being scalded to death. To save its own passengers, Swampert dove, but none of them had had time to expect it. Pikachu clung to Ash, and Ash and Brendan to Swampert, but Archie and Maxie were both thrown deep by the current, and the world turned a strange, eerie red from the glow of Groudon's pillar of lava as they tumbled through the bubbling chaos.

Maxie took a breath, swallowed water, choked and thrashed—and then something grabbed him by the back of the coat, dragging him through the hot water, back to the surface. The glow of lightning overhead gave him an impression of a red carapace as he was hauled like a sack of potatoes, and then he broke the surface, coughing and gasping, rain lashing his face. The Crawdaunt let go of him; something else grabbed him; and then a voice was in his ear, yelling to be heard—a familiar voice, asking a familiar question.

"_Maxie, are you all right?"_

Maxie spluttered, trying to rid his lungs of water. Tabitha hooked his arm beneath Maxie's armpits and pulled him all the way out of the water, throwing him over the back of a Walrein that floated effortlessly, even in the storm; they rose and sank a dozen feet as it rode the rocking waves. Panic tore through Maxie like one of the lightning bolts above—where was the Blue Orb?—and then he saw that Crawdaunt had it clutched in its other claw. Maxie coughed and clung tightly to the Walrein, gasping, trying not to slide off of its slippery back; Tabitha, still in the water, held onto the back of his coat to keep him steady.

In the sea nearby, Shelly and another Crawdaunt rode with the waves, Shelly with her arm thrown around its shell to keep herself above the surface. She had not found him, but her Walrein had not yet returned; soon it broke the surface with Archie thrown across its back, he coughing and gasping, still clutching the Red Orb in Lance's wadded cape as if his life depended on it. Shelly and Crawdaunt swam over to him.

"_Archie, what is wrong with you?"_

He could not even begin to argue; a wave swept over them, sending them a little ways under, and when they reemerged there was at first no lightning, so that Groudon's island stained the water red like blood. Maxie and Tabitha were nearer now, and the red light glinted off of the Blue Orb in their Crawdaunt's clutches; Archie signaled for it, and spent only a fraction of a second staring at it in intense hatred before stuffing it into Lance's cape alongside its twin and tying the whole thing into a bundle again, tempted to drop the vastly powerful, completely useless objects into the sea. Before he could make any decision, however, the water rose high as a wave built out of nowhere. Above them all, Lance and Dragonite had to combine their Hyper Beam with one from Gyarados to fend off one that Kyogre had shot their way. Gyarados roared when Kyogre tackled it in a fury, smashing its long body across the surface of the sea.

"_Go back!"_ Lance hollered down at them. _"All of you, go!"_

Swampert swam just beneath Lance, bringing it to his attention again, and Dragonite swooped lower.

"You kids get out of here too! You'll both get hurt!"

"We're staying!" Brendan yelled back. "We want to help!"

"_Do you understand me?"_ Lance roared. "This is not a game! You'll both _die!"_

Thunder cracked above them, and this, coupled with his own shouting, deafened Lance to the noise of the waterspout generated by Kyogre. Dragonite's reflexes were slow with exhaustion, and it would have been hit had a torrent of Muddy Water not sprayed from Swampert's mouth, Pikachu adding a Thunderbolt to it. The sparkling water slammed into the waterspout, not strong enough to destroy it but more than enough to change its course, giving Dragonite time to duck aside. Swampert paddled away, Ash, Brendan, and Pikachu clinging tight as they rose a rising wave, out of Lance's reach.

Kyogre's fin passed nearby; Dragonite shot a Twister that sucked up water and hit it from the side, startling the great creature enough that it dove for safety. Groudon roared; lightning struck the crater rim to the north, and Lance and Dragonite swooped for Groudon.

The four people and Pokémon floating in the turbulent water did not have time to decide what to do next; something approached them all before anyone could so much as shout. It was Juan, riding a scarred Kingdra that swam dizzingly fast in the rain, effortlessly slicing through the waves to reach them in a matter of seconds. Juan was not immediately recognizable. Coatless and grim-faced, his strong jaw clenched, he surveyed the four of them as they all sank into the trough between two high waves. Then something white broke the surface right beside him, long and ribbonlike, glittering in the lightning: his Milotic.

"Take them all to safety!" he told it. "Guide them to shore at once, and return as fast as you can!"

With that he was off again, Kingdra swimming so quickly it looked as if it were a Flying-type skimming the water's surface, Juan clinging to its weathered scales as it climbed up the back of a high wave. Milotic gave a trilling cry that made the other Pokémon gather around it, and they clustered themselves into a kind of caravan that protected the four humans as well as they could, keeping them above the heaving surface as much as possible. Still, they breathed as much rain as air, and the sea's salt stung them as they broke away from the battle.

"We can't leave!" Archie yelled at Shelly.

"What are we going to do?" she yelled back. "You can't fix this, Archie!"

Archie's face contorted with a kind of helpless rage as she said it, his gaze fixed on the bundle clutched in one hand. Nearby, Maxie clung desperately to Walrein, letting it drag him forward; he had to yell, though Tabitha was only a few feet away in the darkness.

"I'm sorry for leaving! I thought we could help somehow—the Orbs—"

Tabitha did not criticize him; he simply spat out water and took the deepest breath he could in the torrential rain, trying not to cough. Somewhere far to their left, lightning struck, dazzlingly bright, its thunder deafening.

Milotic's long body curved side-to-side as it aimed straight for the dark city to the west; the other Pokémon followed, the humans clinging to them as tightly as they could in the heaving water. Behind them all, the battle between Kyogre and Groudon raged on.


	31. Chapter 31

Matt and Courtney sat on either end of a small poker table covered in green felt, both with dark circles under their eyes. Courtney had leaned back in her chair and propped her muddy boots on the tabletop, one leg crossed over the other, her upper body twisted around so that she could watch the chaos outside the high glass windows; a lit cigarette dangled from between her fingers, sending a thin line of smoke coiling up past her face to drift across the paneled ceiling. Matt, for his part, had salvaged a deck of cards from inside a compartment beneath the tabletop, and was dealing himself a fresh game of solitaire. He could not lay the cards out in a straight row, since he had to work around Courtney's boots, but it did not seem to bother him; he looked as if he were doing this simply to keep himself distracted. Beneath his chair, a Crawdaunt slept, its jointed body sunk into an odd posture as it dozed.

Courtney's cigarette extinguished itself. It took her a little while to notice, but when she did, she growled and held it down below the table, where a Houndoom lay with its horned head resting on its forepaws. It snorted sparks onto her glove, igniting the cigarette afresh, and Courtney took a deep pull from it, straightening in her seat and taking her legs off of the table as she blew a cloud of smoke so thick her face was momentarily obscured. Matt looked up.

"You know what time it is?"

"Nope." Courtney did not even glance at him as she tapped the ash from her cigarette against the back of her chair. "Four-thirty, maybe. Almost five."

This exhaustive conversation ended, they lapsed into silence again, or whatever passed for silence given what was going on outside. Courtney finished her cigarette and readied a fresh one, lighting it with the butt of the first and then dropping the stub onto the table; it singed a small hole in the felt before burning out. Matt stopped flipping over cards after a while, simply staring at the incomplete game before him, too numb to continue.

Footsteps thudded in the hall, mingling with the thunder, and soon a handful of people appeared in the doorway. Matt's Crawdaunt jerked itself awake at the noise.

"The hell do you three want?" Courtney asked the newcomers, blowing smoke. Before any of them answered, she added, "Boss and Tabitha back yet?"

Craig, Sierra, and Stanley looked at each other; Sierra shook her head, and Stanley said, "We, uh, we came to ask you, commander. We've been upstairs, so we thought maybe...maybe they'd come back by now..."

"Not yet." Courtney blew a smoke ring, watching it float away and expand instead of looking at the worried grunts. "Not ever, is my guess."

And she jerked her head at the windows, where a simultaneous flash of lightning and peal of thunder emphasized her point. Stanley gulped, and Craig said, "Well, then how are we getting out of here, commander? What's the plan now?"

"Plan?"

"Yeah. Shit, we can't just stay here, we'll get fuckin' killed eventually. Groudon and Kyogre aren't ever gonna stop fighting..."

He trailed off, evidently hoping for some kind of reassurance, but Courtney's laugh was harsh and bitter.

"Oh, suck it up, would you?" She took another pull from her cigarette.

"But aren't...Aren't you worried, commander?"

"Worried?" A sharp laugh, mingled with smoke. "Listen, I'm not worried—I'm scared outta my mind. But there's nowhere to run to anymore, and I'm sure as hell not gonna die crying like a little bitch. If you want to, that's your own problem."

Craig swallowed. Courtney gave them all a contemptuous look.

"Do whatever you want," she told them. "Nothing we can do now but hope the roof doesn't fall in."

This pronouncement seemed to be the closest thing to advice that Courtney was willing to provide, and Craig, Sierra, and Stanley scuttled away, Courtney lowering her hood and shaking out her dark hair as they went. Another long silence followed their departure. Matt seemed too tired to even pretend to entertain himself any further, and swept the cards off of the table with a look of tense exhaustion before leaning forward and resting his elbow on the table, pressing his knuckles into his eye socket to keep himself awake. Courtney resumed watching the storm, and even got up for a few minutes to stand by the window, flinching but looking defiant whenever thunder crashed close by. Finally, she stomped back to the poker table and threw herself into her chair again, lighting a fresh cigarette and propping her boots on the felt once more.

"So, how long do you think it'll take?" she asked Matt, after a particularly long and loud blast of thunder that left their ears ringing.

Matt looked up at her, blinking. "What?"

"They're right, y'know." She waved her smoking cigarette towards the window. "This town won't hold up much longer. Couple of days, at the most. Or maybe Groudon'll go for another quake once the sun comes up."

Matt grimaced his agreement. Courtney's Houndoom yawned and adjusted its sleeping position, and Courtney gave it an almost envious glance.

"Well...Guess this is the end of the line," she said.

"Looks like."

"We're gonna die here sooner or later."

"I guess."

"Better wrap things up." She blew out a smoke ring, watching it wander towards the ceiling. "Write our wills, say our prayers."

"I don't think anybody's gonna come looking for our wills."

"I'm just—it's an expression, all right? Fuck, you're such a dumbass."

"Can't you give it a rest? We're in the same boat."

"Yeah, and it's sinking."

There was a pause. The two of them exchanged looks, and Courtney took another long pull from her cigarette, studying Matt with a critical eye as she exhaled twin plumes of smoke through her nose.

"So...You wanna fuck again?"

•**·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Archie, Maxie, Shelly, and Tabitha each did their best to hold on as the Pokémon dragged them through the water, riding the rolling swells back towards shore. The waves sent them fifteen feet up and down every half a minute, but they stayed on the surface more often than not, floating in the heaving water as rain spattered against their faces and peppered the foamy sea. Thunder and lightning crashed above them; Groudon and Kyogre clashed behind.

They were heading straight back towards the city, but even before they neared it, it was clear that getting back to shore would be much more difficult than coming out had been. Kyogre seemed to be making an effort to intensify the flooding now that the night was old; the water had risen a great deal already, and some wave had washed so high up the city streets that all they could see, as they approached, was an impenetrable barrier of carnage: the remains of every boat that had been in the harbor, broken to pieces, and mingled with their splintered hulls all the refuse of the city that had been bashed away by the onslaught, crates and cargo and furniture, even, suspended on and in the water. The sea had risen so high that two-story buildings rose out of its edge where it beat against the crater, packing debris tightly between what had once been a row of shops and warehouses and creating a barrier of wreckage between the open water and the relative safety of the steep streets. Earlier, the two Walrein and Crawdaunt had managed, with difficulty, to smash through enough of it to get Shelly and Tabitha out onto the water; now those same Pokémon were split between all four of them, and they had much more debris to get through.

As they drew closer, Shelly studied the situation from the crest of a wave and wondered what to do. They had stayed mostly underwater to get from shore to sea, the Pokémon dragging them down below most of the wreckage, dodging what had sunk; however, there was so much more debris now that if the water had been calm, they could have walked across it easily. Shelly's eyes stung with saltwater and lightning flashes; she clung tighter to the shell of the Crawdaunt beside her, her mind racing. There were fifty yards of flotsam between them and the relative safety of the city.

Next to her, Archie seemed to have grasped the situation as well. He treaded water, rising and falling on each new wave that came from behind them, the arm thrown over Walrein still clutching Lance's cape with the two Orbs bundled inside. During a long lightning flash that coincided with the high crest of a wave, he scanned the debris field through the sheets of rain, looking for any opening that might allow them to pass. There was nothing.

He yelled at Walrein, and somehow it heard him; he held his breath and dove with it, but they stayed under for less than half a minute. When they resurfaced he called to Shelly.

_"Can't go under!"_

She barely heard him, but understood—she had feared as much. What they saw now was just the tip of the iceberg, only the most buoyant of the enormous amount of dangerous wreckage swirling in the turbulent water, ever increasing as the sea level inside the crater rose. With only one Pokémon each to protect them, the four of them had little hope of making it through such an obstacle course in one piece, and diving would not spare them the challenge. Still—

_"We have to try!" _Shelly called back, as they sank down into the trough of a wave, surrounded by towering dark water. Walrein and Crawdaunt seemed to know they did not want to continue forward just yet, and so stayed in one place and rode the waves, rising up and sinking with them while keeping the fragile humans from being dragged under or away. Even in this kind of fury the sea had a rhythm to it, and after another two steady waves Archie yelled something at Walrein and disappeared. Shelly and Crawdaunt followed them.

It was impossible to see underwater. Their only light was lightning, and even when it flashed it showed her only bubbles and huge floating shapes; she saw Walrein and Archie for just a few seconds before they were lost in the echoing chaos.

Some large object hit Crawdaunt, who could not dodge while staying clamped to Shelly's shirt, and Shelly felt it shudder as it shoved forward through the darkness, trying to thrash its way through the debris that kept coming at them from ahead and below. When something hit Shelly in the back she gasped, releasing all the air from her lungs; Crawdaunt immediately sensed this and shot upwards. A few moments later it burst to the surface, its Crabhammer breaking apart a piece of wood, and Shelly gulped down air and rain, buffeted on all sides by debris; when the water slammed her sideways into something hard she grabbed onto it, and a nudge from Crawdaunt half-threw her up onto the upturned hull of most of a fishing boat. She clung to it and pulled her hair out of her eyes, shaking.

Maxie and Tabitha were close by, still on the surface, both holding tight to Juan's Milotic while the other Walrein and Crawdaunt fended off wreckage as best as they could. When Milotic spotted Shelly it swam towards her, trying to keep its passengers above the surface even as the water heaved and sank and flotsam battered them from every direction. At last it drew close enough that Maxie was able to grab onto the other side of the boat and haul himself up, despite the heaviness of his wet coat and the blinding darkness of the storm. The next lightning flash showed him where to throw out his hand to catch hold of Tabitha's arm, helping him scramble up. Shelly tried not to slip as she twisted around frantically, scanning the water rising high again around them.

Spray burst upwards ten feet away, and then there was Archie, thrown over the back of Walrein, which smashed debris out of the way with progressively more powerful Ice Balls as it struggled towards them. Shelly helped Archie scramble up off of its back onto the makeshift raft, and as she did so her racing heart pounded harder. Something, some stray piece of metal or splintered plank, had collided with him underwater, tearing a wound diagonally across his torso that bled dark and free, and his eyes were wide with pain as he dragged himself higher up the upturned boat, coughing up rain, still clutching the useless bundled Orbs for dear life. Walrein had been injured as well; the thick fat on its side and back oozed blood.

From the relative safety of their new vantage point, the four of them looked out over the debris field, the Pokémon down in the water now fighting just to stay on the surface as the waves carried them all forward into the maze. For a minute the five Pokémon tried to work together to carve a path through the debris, but it was difficult to coordinate their attacks as the water rose and fell, and every time they destroyed something it only shattered into smaller pieces that pummeled them with unabated force. When the shockwave from a Crabhammer almost knocked the four humans back into the water, they gave up—seemingly on orders from Milotic, which threaded between the wreckage to rear up on top of a wave and gaze at Shelly. She understood.

_"Go back!" _Shelly yelled at it, as the water sank and a broken crate hit Milotic in the side of the head. Nearby, the injured Walrein was bellowing in pain. _"Go back and help fight!"_

Milotic's pale scales gleamed rainbow in a long lightning flash. It glanced over towards the distant city, frustrated that it could not cleave a safe path to it for the humans, then nodded to Shelly and dove away, smashing a floating pole with its tail, the two Walrein and Crawdaunt following it with great difficulty. When Tabitha looked to her sharply, Shelly yelled, _"We're safer out of the water!", _and he set his jaw, nodding. Archie gasped some agreement.

The boat hull rose and fell beneath the rain, heaving forward as the waves from the middle of the harbor shoved it and many tons of other wreckage closer towards shore. It was not true safety, but they were at least up out of the waves, protected from being hit or crushed or simply drowning outright. If they could ride this piece of wreckage all the way into the city, they stood a chance.

As they were swept forward, nine or ten seconds passed without a lightning strike. It was long enough that as the next great wave came rolling in they could not see anything, engulfed in darkness and thunder and the distant screams of the ancient Pokémon who dueled without a thought for any other living thing that might suffer for it. In the pitch blackness the sea heaved them all high onto the wave's crest, and when they started to rush down into the valley behind, something happened—the debris heaved and shifted apart, the water churned, they held on—but when lightning struck at last there were only two people clinging to the boat down in the wave trough.

Tabitha almost dove back into the water before someone appeared on the surface nearby, beside a piece of a floating newsstand. He grabbed Shelly and helped her back up, then called futilely into the rainy darkness, waiting for the lightning to show him the world again, looking for Maxie—and there he was in the next lightning flash, holding onto a piece of debris but not struggling, not trying to swim or waving to get attention. Tabitha reached for him, missed, and dove; it took him less than half a minute to haul whatever Maxie was clinging to over to the boat and pull first himself, then Maxie out of the crowded water.

Maxie was gasping, his face contorted with pain, and instead of scrambling as far up the boat's hull as he could, he clutched his side and bent double, as if he were going to vomit. Tabitha dragged him forward to keep him from sliding back into the water, and by the light of the lightning he saw that Maxie was coughing up bright red blood.

Maxie cried out, and though Tabitha could barely hear it, he could tell by the sound that something had broken inside of him, as if he'd been slammed into by something heavy. Another wave sent them all lunging forward, the raft of debris they were on knocking violently against other wreckage, and Tabitha nearly fell into the water himself as he struggled to keep hold of both the hull and Maxie.

Already they were halfway to shore. The chunk of boat to which they clung was larger than most of the other wreckage, so that every time they collided with something they smashed it aside instead of being thrown aside themselves. But it was clear they could not land safely. Too much wreckage choked the streets, and the rising waves pounded them too strongly; in any case the nearest visible ground was away to their left. A row of three-story buildings reared out of the water directly in front of them, every window they could see already shattered. They would be thrown against the nearest storefront soon.

As thunder tore the sky apart, something pulled on Shelly's arm. She twisted around to find Tabitha pointing at the building directly in front of them; he yelled something, but she could not hear whatever it was, thanks to another peal of thunder. He pointed again at the building, and Shelly studied it as best as she could through the rain. A fork of lightning struck the water far behind them, on the other side of the crater, and the light it threw showed her what Tabitha had somehow already seen. There was a metal ladder bolted to the side of the building that ran all the way up it: a fire escape for the roof, still intact.

As wave after wave of debris piled up in front of them, and shoved at them from behind, Shelly crouched, gasping for something to breathe other than rain and saltwater, every muscle in her body tense. The building loomed dark as they approached it, and then they sank—the next wave came and pulled them up, up, up—

The boat smashed into the side of the building at the very crest of the wave, the impact knocking it to pieces. When the water rolled back, Shelly remained suspended in midair, clinging to the metal ladder. She managed to scramble a few feet higher as the next swell broke over her, and when the water sank again she still held on tight, though a piece of wood had slammed so hard into the small of her back that it had nearly thrown her loose. With gritted teeth she hauled herself all the way up the ladder and over the raised edge of the roof, landing with a splash in the water that had pooled on the rooftop, and only allowed herself a few moments to gasp for breath before looking down at the water below, rising again in front of another oncoming wave. Directly below her, Archie still held onto a piece of driftwood, and the Orbs. He tried to struggle closer to the building, and to the ladder, but the water surged before he could do anything.

The force of the wave smashed Archie against the side of the building, and for a second he went under—but then he reappeared, clinging to the ladder with one hand, the other still miraculously gripping the bundle containing the two Orbs. He had enough strength to raise it up towards her, and with no ceremony she grabbed it and threw it aside across the roof, reaching instead for Archie as he struggled to climb up the ladder, blood streaming down his front. His face showed white in the lightning as he looked up at her.

_"Grab my hand!" _Shelly yelled.

Archie saw her extended hand and reached for it, then looked back, and Shelly, following his gaze, saw Tabitha and Maxie still in the water, riding on a large piece of debris, Maxie half-thrown across Tabitha's back. As the next wave approached, the water surged a dozen feet higher, bringing Maxie and Tabitha close. Tabitha, through sheer tenacity, actually managed to stand up and balance just long enough to help Maxie lunge towards the ladder; he caught it, and Archie caught him, and Archie kept them both clinging there to the side of the building even as the oncoming wave rolled over them. Tabitha fell away when it sank, having slammed sideways into the building.

With one hand Archie shoved Maxie high enough to where he could grab the edge of the roof; Shelly caught him and pulled him over the side. When Maxie hit the rooftop he lay there on his back, gasping and choking in the rain, unable even to crawl away as the side of his coat darkened and blood ran in a thin stream out of the corner of his mouth.

Again Shelly reached down for Archie, and this time he tried to grab her hand himself, but missed. His grip slackened, and it took Shelly snatching the collar of his shirt to steady him enough to where he could clutch at the ladder again—he had lost a lot of blood, and was starting to show it. She pulled harder, and he found enough strength to scramble up the slippery ladder and onto the roof beside her, dragging himself away on his hands and knees. Shelly looked down into the water.

Tabitha had not been knocked unconscious; he was still on the surface, and hauled himself up onto another large chunk of floating wood, his hood thrown back, his face blazing with furious determination that could not be beaten out of him by something so long scorned as the sea. He scrambled over to another piece of debris, closer to the building, and as the water started to surge upwards in anticipation of another wave, he made a grab for the ladder and missed.

The next swell that came in was massive. Perhaps, far away in the middle of the harbor, Kyogre had launched some attack, and this was the echo of it come all the way to shore; like a living creature rearing up, the water rolled and heaved, so high that the wave actually broke over the top of the roof, showering it with splintered wreckage and salty water. When the water drew back it left Tabitha hanging from the edge of the roof with both hands, his knuckles white.

_"Gotcha!"_

Shelly caught Tabitha by his sodden overshirt. He tried to pull himself up over the side of the rooftop, Shelly leaning as far down as she could to help him, and as she did so the next debris-laden wave slammed like a runaway train against the building.

Luckily Tabitha was already halfway over the roof; if he had not been, several tons of wreckage would have crushed him against the face of the building. But he had not completely cleared the water, either. The sharp _crack _of some bone breaking in his lower body could be heard even over the thunder, and a piece of metal slammed into Shelly's left shoulder, forcing her to let go of him with that hand. Tabitha screamed, choked it down, then continued to pull himself over the roof; Shelly helped as best as she could, her shoulder burning. The water tried to suck Tabitha back under, but he finally rolled over the raised edge of the roof and collapsed, his right leg bent in a way that showed some piece of it below the knee had snapped.

_"Are you all right, commander?"_

Instead of answering, Tabitha screamed again when he forced himself to twist around and sit upright. His wounded leg stretched out in front of him, bleeding freely, useless and so painful that his face had paled; nevertheless he managed a nod at Shelly, then dragged himself to where Maxie was lying on his back a few feet away, his eyes wide as he struggled to breathe through the driving rain. Nearby, Archie sat propped up against a piece of concrete, bleeding. The color had drained from his face; his dark hair contrasted starkly with his white skin as blood spilled from the wound on his chest, leaking into the water pooled around them. Shelly scrambled to his side.

"We have to keep going, Archie!" she called, trying to make herself heard over the din of distant battle, ignoring the searing pain in her shoulder. It felt dislocated. "We can't stay here!"

Archie tried to get to his feet, but could not quite manage it—his knees buckled just as he straightened up, so that he hit the ground again with a splash; if Shelly had not helped catch him with her good arm, he would have cracked his jaw against the rooftop. With effort he returned himself to a sitting position, leaning his head back, gasping. Through his torn shirt, Shelly could see him bleed more fiercely as his heart pounded.

"You go on, Shelly!" He had to steady himself against the concrete he was sitting against; he looked disoriented. "Go on! I'll catch up!"

Thunder drowned Shelly's answer as another wave hit the building. She scrambled out of the way of the spray—not that it mattered, in the rain—and stood up, looking around, a peal of thunder rolling over her and echoing away through the dark city. A lightning flash showed her the way to safety, or whatever passed for it now: the sloping cobblestone street that rose above and behind them, emerging out of the debris-choked water thirty feet away to climb up and up, back towards the high reaches of the crater. If they could make it over there, somehow, and then run uphill...

She did not have to assess the situation again to know this was not possible, but did so anyway, looking quickly from the swooning Archie to the gasping Maxie and grim-faced Tabitha, rooted to his side. He noticed her.

"The water's rising!" he yelled. "This place will be under in an hour!"

Another wave hit the side of the building, spraying the roof with dirty saltwater, as if to say _sooner than that. _Shelly swallowed rain and yelled, _"We have to get to higher ground!"_, but Tabitha only snarled at her when she pointed with her good arm towards the street behind them, barely visible through the lashing rain. He said nothing, but his expression of mingled pain and fury was argument enough; she was the only one of the four of them who could still walk. Out in the harbor, Groudon roared.

Shelly tried to move her left shoulder, bit her tongue against the pain, and then studied the debris-choked water between the rooftop and the nearest street, trying to calculate whether she stood any chance of getting that far without being able to properly swim. The rain was blinding, choking; the unnatural storm had little wind, making the deluge come straight down, like a waterfall.

"Shelly, go!"

Archie had grabbed her leg to get her attention, but she had heard him, and lowered herself back to her knees to be eye level with him. His face contorted with something intense—rage or pain or fear—and he reached out and grabbed the front of her shirt, yelling over the thunder, pale and clearly dizzy. His grip was weak.

"Get the fuck out of here, Shelly!" he yelled. "Go! I'm not worth it! Just _go!"_

A crack of thunder, another wave. Shelly pulled herself closer to Archie and tried to staunch his bleeding with one hand, her teeth gritted, her shoulder searing when she accidentally moved her other arm.

•**·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Wallace dove. Underwater, the thunder was nothing, a muffled rumble; instead it was Groudon's pillar of lava that roared and hissed as it burst up from the seafloor, the sound magnified so that it seemed almost like some animal. But there was another sound, too, another creature here in the rolling tumult beneath the surface. Kyogre's wailing reverberated through the water, loud and harsh with a rage as deep as the sea in her darkest crevices, and Lapras stayed just ahead of it, Wallace clinging onto its shell, his cowl streaming in the water behind him as they raced before Kyogre. It chased them for a few dozen yards, and when it had nearly caught them in its jaws, Wallace's Milotic hit its belly with a Dragon Pulse from below, giving Lapras time to breach the surface. Wallace drew breath and looked up.

Skarmory and Dragonite still bore Steven and Lance to and fro around Groudon, Lance's Gyarados helping them to keep its attention. Across the water, Juan and Kingdra were still too fast to see, Kingdra having Rested a little to regain some of the strength it had lost over past few hours. It was the only one who could, however. Wallace felt himself shaking uncontrollably as he leaned against Lapras's neck for a few precious seconds, rain hitting the back of his head.

Groudon spat a Mud Shot towards Kyogre when it breached too close. Swampert dove, Ash and Brendan and Pikachu all clinging tight, and they reemerged forty feet away, outside of the field of mud that was already being diluted by the water. Kyogre dove; Gyarados went after it.

As lightning struck the crater rim in the distance, Dragonite dodged a tongue of flame from Groudon. Lance was thrown off, and though Dragonite was too exhausted and slow to catch him, he caught himself, grabbing onto its lower leg with one hand and dangling precariously over the swirling water. A wave rose up behind them—suddenly and unnaturally, the water simply swelling up like a fountain, and Groudon roared at it with redoubled fury. Another lightning strike shone right through the huge wave as if it were a window, revealing a dark shape inside of it, and with a roar Kyogre burst from out of the wall of water, its fins outstretched as though to take flight. Inside its open jaws glowed a blindingly bright sphere of energy, the beginnings of a powerful attack—

A Hyper Beam hit Kyogre square in the head. The force of the blow knocked its massive bulk aside, sending it crashing back into the sea with a shriek of indignation, and Lance managed to scramble back onto Dragonite. When he did, he gaped.

Silhouetted against a fork of lightning, Drake stood atop his screaming Salamence, heedless of the fury of the storm that tore at his tattered and rain-soaked coat. His hat had vanished. With a howl of rage, Salamence spat a fireball so powerful that the rain could not quench it, and in the blaze of yellow light Drake's eyes flashed like hellfire.

_"You sank my ship!"_

Thunder underscored his roar, and a massive swell heaved when Kyogre passed right below them both, its fin cutting the water. Salamence aimed just ahead of it, its maw glowing, trying to charge up another Hyper Beam, but it had to wait; in the lull Lance flew Dragonite close enough to yell.

_"Captain!"_ he called; the thunder tore the words out of his mouth. _"Captain, you—"_

_"Save it!"_

Drake caught hold of Salamence's neck to keep himself steady as it reared, hissing and spitting, its outrage building as the enemy in the water below refused to come up and fight. Salamence spurted bright red fire and the green energy of a Dragonbreath, mingled together into a glowing flash that the rain extinguished only with difficulty, and the instant Kyogre's head breached it dove, bellowing, spraying it with fire. Kyogre moved towards it, but then a Thunderbolt hit its other side, making it turn in that direction—until Salamence dove and raked its every claw along the top of Kyogre's head. The resulting Water Spout, had it hit, would have knocked Salamence unconscious.

Lance and Dragonite swooped to Salamence's side as Drake released another Pokémon; his Flygon joined the melee, ignoring the torrential rain despite its typing, shooting off to accompany Steven and Skarmory even as Drake roared over at Lance.

"Get out of here, son! You've been fighting long enough!"

"They'll destroy the city if we let up!" Lance roared back. "We have to wait for dawn!"

Something passed through him as he said it: a shudder of numb horror, hours of hellish chaos and exhaustion pressing powerfully upon his mind and body. The coming dawn only meant light, and the end of the rain and thunder—not the end of the battle. Without the storm they would have a chance to regroup, could get help, but then—

A Water Spout from Kyogre exploded fifty feet into the air. Dragonite just barely dodged it.

•**·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Archie blinked, struggling to keep his head up. An intense tiredness kept creeping into him, despite the adrenaline, despite how fast his heart was beating, and he knew full well why—the water that had pooled on the rooftop swirled dark with blood. He was losing too much of it, and the rain, though warm, sucked all the heat out of his body, so that as he sat there he shivered and shivered as though with fever. He had to stay awake for as long as possible. He had to stay awake.

Lightning and thunder, lightning and thunder, Kyogre and Groudon roaring, and the blazing hiss of lava and seawater colliding with furious violence; the sounds blended together in Archie's brain, like some drunken drumbeat that pulsed through his body, competing with his frantic heart. Yet despite it all, he was tired—so tired he wanted to close his eyes and pass out, right here in the heart of the storm. Was this really what dying was like? So easy...

No, no, _no._

Archie snapped himself awake, his head jerking up off of his shoulder. He could not die, not here, not yet. There was too much left to do. A tangle of reasons knotted itself in his foggy mind, _plans _and _Kyogre _and _Shelly _and a dozen other very sensible justifications, and yet he was incapable of panic, after everything that had already happened this night. Kyogre...Kyogre had been the most important thing to him for so long, so very very long, and now it breached and dove and breached again in the distance, and Archie found he did not care. It had been so tempting, so powerful, and yet...something else now...It was getting so hard to think...

Archie forced himself to try and focus his gaze, to try and see details of the battle through the blinding rain. Dying...Was he? Well, if he was, it didn't seem to be so bad. Certainly the possibility did not horrify him—nor did his utter failure, the collapse of everything he had decided to do with his life. He had lived with the end already, and with failure. This deafening chaos was nothing to the long and lonely silence of Sky Pillar.

He struggled with his weakening body for a moment before managing to put an arm around Shelly, who pressed herself closer to him, heedless of his bleeding wound; together they watched the ancient Pokemon's duel raging out in the harbor, still as fierce as the moment it had begun. Through his mounting exhaustion, he at last realized (as he blurrily watched Kyogre burst again from the surface of the churning sea, small from this distance), that the creature meant nothing to him now. If he'd had the strength, he would have laughed about it.

It was not that Kyogre seemed any less incredible than it had before. If anything, Archie understood its power better now than he ever had in all his years of desiring it. The problem was simply that there was no longer any place in his heart for something that big, after all the work it had taken to find. A woman he'd met along the way took up too much room.

•**·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Shelly pulled her wet hair out of her eyes, shaking in the warm rain, her shoulder aching. She could not see much, except when lightning flashed through the storm clouds, and the world it showed her was not heartening: churning black water, and gray rain, and a sky above so turbulent that it seemed impossible that somewhere in it still existed the silent stars. It was like some hellish antithesis to the beautiful Sootopolis she had once known well. The water flowing down the steep streets made it look as if the city itself were weeping.

She could run, perhaps. If she got lucky, she could struggle her way to the nearest street behind them, fighting through the crowded water and then scrabbling up the cobblestone, saving herself for whatever death might come later, in the next day or two. But that option did not tempt her. She had never run from anything before, and would not start tonight.

Endlessly, tirelessly, Groudon and Kyogre sparred out in the harbor, the storm no more to them than background noise for their screams. It was Monsu Island all over again, except Archie was here beside her, neither laughing nor insane, and Shelly was glad of it. This was the way it should end, if it had to: with the two of them together. Their dream had failed, their grand plans and clever schemes had been washed away—theirs, both of theirs, not only his—and they themselves would be washed away, in all likelihood, before the morning came. Shelly was not afraid. She would walk, steady and straight and level-headed, into this last, deepest trap, the trap she and Archie had set for themselves without realizing it, thinking their reward would be power, and pride, and the chance to make the world their own. He had led, but she had followed, because she had believed.

But that was all right, Shelly thought, as Groudon's island glowed brighter in the distance. It was all right, to have believed—and to have cared, too, at the end.

She pressed herself closer to him. She had always put these things off for later, relegating the difficult act of feeling to some undefined time in the future. Well, that time had come. It would only be for a few hours, and not the long years she had always assumed she would have, but it was enough. It had to be.

Shelly buried her face in the crook of Archie's neck, not caring that he bled on her, not caring that the blinding rain soaked them both to the bone. She felt him wrap an arm around her and say something, but a peal of thunder masked his words. It might have been her name, or a confession, or one final apology. It didn't matter. He was hers.

•**·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Maxie could barely breathe. When he inhaled he swallowed rain, and when he coughed it back up, his right side hurt so badly that he would have screamed, had he been able. Instead he gasped and shook, dizziness making him reel as he fought to fill his lungs. Lying flat on his back in two inches of water, his eyes closed, he tasted blood and bile and salt in his mouth. So great was the turmoil of Kyogre and Groudon's clash, of rain and wind and the smashing of waves against the side of the building on whose roof they had managed to gather, that it was even difficult, sometimes, to hear the thunder.

Suddenly it grew a little easier to breathe, though the pain in his side had not lessened. Maxie realized it was because rain no longer lashed his face with the same intensity. He opened his eyes.

Tabitha had pulled off his hood and was holding it over Maxie's head with one arm, shielding him from the rain. Maxie's side pained him too badly to speak, and so he mouthed the words _thank you _up at Tabitha, who nodded to show he'd understood. Maxie forced himself to take a deep and agonizing breath, blood bubbling up in the back of his throat, and mouthed again: _we tried._ Tabitha nodded once more.

Yes, he had tried...Tried to what? To impose his will upon nature, to use for his own ends a creature far older and fiercer and more powerful than even his wildest dreams had conceived, and the dissonance between what he had sought to do and what he had actually accomplished weighed upon Maxie as he lay bleeding in the water. This was the end, he supposed. This was what his life's work had been. He would die here tonight, and so would Tabitha, and so would Archie and Shelly and many other people whose names he did not know, and the legacy that he would leave was destruction. He wished he could, at least, spare Tabitha, but that was not possible. He had learned that lesson already. There was nothing he could say or do, no order he could give, that would make Tabitha abandon him.

He raised a hand and clutched Tabitha's knee; Tabitha said something in response, but Maxie could not make it out. He understood when Tabitha's free hand found his and squeezed it.

Another dizzy spell. Maxie closed his eyes, struggling against the pain to breathe deeply enough to keep himself awake, and directly above him lightning shot through the clouds, blazing through his eyelids. Something out in the harbor screamed—Groudon or Kyogre, he could not tell which. It made no difference now.

The irony, Maxie realized, was that he had achieved part of his dream. Not the way he'd wanted, and not the way he'd planned, but the end result, in terms of his personal legacy, was the same. If there was anything left of him after this battle, and if whatever was left was buried, those who knew who he had been would come to his grave and gaze upon it, thinking—with hatred, instead of gratitude—_this was a man who changed the face of the earth._

•**·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Tabitha grit his teeth against the pain in his leg. Bullet-sized drops of water hit his face like hail, and he could only see clearly a few feet in any direction; the world beyond that was a cacophonous blur of rainfall, except when lightning showed him the outline of Kyogre and Groudon's battle, out in the middle of the harbor. Beside him, Maxie lay on his back, his breathing shallow and irregular, the side of his coat black with blood. Tabitha kept shielding his face with his hood. He hated that now, when it mattered most, he could give so little to the man who had given him so much.

The pain in Tabitha's leg shot up another notch. He forced himself not to cry out, but a strangled noise still escaped him, and he clamped his jaw shut, grinding his teeth, swallowing rain. Damned if he would die screaming. And he would die here—of that he was certain—it was only a question of when, of whether the rising water or exposure to the elements would claim him first, and how long they would take. But the prospect did not daunt him. It was not a broken leg that kept him huddled there by Maxie's side beneath the thunder and lightning, watching him grow paler.

Mightyena would be all right, he thought. It was in its Pokéball, back up at the house, and it was better off there; Derek would care for it. Tabitha knew it would have readily chosen to die here too, but he would never have allowed it to make that choice. Mightyena had been a loyal friend to him even when he'd had no others, but it did not deserve his end. This was, evidently, the end.

Lightning struck somewhere out on the water, so close that its thunder was almost simultaneous—a heart-stopping blast that made him flinch despite himself. He bit his tongue against another jolt of pain and tried to shift position, but found that his leg made it impossible, and as another wave hit the face of the building he settled for hunkering a little lower to better shield Maxie from the driving rain. Out at sea, Groudon bellowed and spat a cloud of fire.

In bits and pieces Tabitha evaluated his life, as one ought (he supposed) at times like this, but it was less a coherent assessment and more a cursory skimming of memories, like flipping through a book one last time and catching a few strings of words here and there, between lightning flashes. It was not nostalgia, certainly—just a formal acknowledgement that all those things had happened. The boy stealing from a market stall and the teenager screaming at his drunk mother and the surly young man offloading crates from a cargo ship had all existed, in that order, and now Magma Admin Tabitha—who had replaced them all, and been happier than any of them could have ever dreamed—watched a wave break over the roof of the building and came to terms with his fate.

Objectively, Tabitha had neither lived long nor accomplished much, yet to him it did not feel so. As he spat out rain, it seemed to him that twenty-five years—a whole quarter century—had been time enough to try out the business of life, and he was grimly satisfied with his trial. He did not fear the death he saw in the roaring water below, nor did he regret any of the choices that had brought him to it. He had failed, but never wavered. That was something to be proud of, even in the face of this.

And what was more, he thought, adjusting his grip on his hood: he'd had someone besides himself to live for and die with. Many people were not so lucky.

"Go on ahead, Maxie," he said, barely able to hear his own voice. "I'll be there soon."

•**·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The thunder rolled. It sounded like one long stuttering roar, in the wake of flash after flash of lightning; no ordinary storm could ever have been this ceaselessly violent. Nature's wrath would have been spent long before this, but Kyogre's and Groudon's might take a human lifetime to peter out, if indeed it ever did.

The trainers out on the water fought. Exhausted and numb, soaked to the bone and aching in every limb, they threw themselves at the two ancient Pokémon, who would have already ripped the whole crater apart in their blind fury had they not been kept busy. The rising sea battered the lower rim of Sootopolis, tossing wreckage onto the steep streets down which rain flowed as if through a gutter, and on a rooftop on the water's edge, the few who had made it all happen watched the world go mad.

Lightning illuminated Tabitha's face for a second. He seemed to be saying something, but Shelly could not hear it over the waves and rain and thunder. Then he extended his free hand, and she, understanding the offer, reached out with her own and clasped it, so that the four of them—Archie, Shelly, Maxie, and Tabitha—became a group, huddled together in the midst of the tempest. There was no Team Magma or Team Aqua anymore. There was just a handful of injured people, powerless against the colossal forces they had unleashed, who were about to face the consequences of their actions.

The water rose. The four of them held fast to one another and waited to die as one.


	32. Chapter 32

"Lance! _Lance!"_

Steven's curse was inaudible to all but his Skarmory. Its talons drew blood from his shoulders as it carried him, having caught him when he fell, and he clutched one of its legs for support while the storm buffeted his dangling body. Dragonite had just taken a fireball from Groudon that knocked it straight down into the water, smoking and screaming, and Skarmory did all it could to keep Steven out of harm's way as they dodged a Mud Shot and scanned the surface of the heaving sea. Kyogre passed beneath them, lured away by Juan.

Nearby, Drake's Salamence and Flygon flew side-by-side, Drake on Flygon, the two dragons dodging one another as they threaded in and out of each other's flightpaths. They flew so close to Groudon so often that its attention was torn between the nuisance they provided and the presence of Kyogre; frustrated, the huge red creature breathed fire at them, but they both dodged it easily. The flames shot fifty feet away through the rain, creating a cloud of steam.

Something exploded from the surface of the water—Dragonite, burned and furious, the scales on one of its arms charred. Its Hyper Beam blasted apart the steam cloud, but did little more than discomfort Groudon, which rumbled before continuing to follow the circling Kyogre with its gaze, crouching, ready to strike if Kyogre did. Kyogre itself had the same dilemma—every time it tried to face Groudon head-on and ready a towering wave, Juan and Wallace intervened, Juan's Kingdra impossible to catch and Wallace's Lapras in good enough shape to fight back. Kyogre's fin broke the surface; Pikachu's Thunderbolt hit it, making it dive again, and Swampert rode a wave up high. Steven yelled through the rain at Dragonite.

"_Lance!" _he roared, pointing down. Its eyes widened, and with a bellow it folded its wings and plunged into the stormy water; Skarmory took Steven higher as lightning flashed. A few moments later, Dragonite reappeared, blasting back up out of the water even as something much larger did as well: Gyarados, Lance riding on its head. Evidently Lance gave Dragonite an order, because it flew upwards back to Steven and Skarmory, using Barrier alongside Skarmory's Protect to help shield them from another burst of steaming flame.

It would never end, Steven thought, his mind reeling. Hours they had fought, hours and hours of lightning and thunder and water and fire, and still Groudon and Kyogre screamed and sparred, undaunted, not like Pokémon but like elemental gods, like beings for whom time and fatigue were simply not any concern. Steven clutched Skarmory's leg tighter, so exhausted it dizzied him, thinking of Metagross. It would never end...

Below, Kyogre surged halfway out of the water, the red patterns on its body showing up clearly in the light of Groudon's fire. It lunged for a retreating Juan and Kingdra, toothed mouth agape, and though Kingdra was much faster, Kyogre came at an angle, cutting them off. Kingdra swerved and plunged headlong into an oncoming wave, disappearing. Kyogre would have followed had a combined Ice Beam and Thunderbolt not grazed its side.

Groudon roared. Steven tried to scramble up onto Skarmory's back, but the heat of a Fire Blast aimed at Kyogre below knocked them several feet, and he nearly fell. He was too battered and weary even to curse as steam washed over them both, its heat diluted by the pouring rain; he just clung on with gritted teeth, waiting for another opportunity. Thunder crashed, so intense and so close that he felt the force of it physically pass through him, jarring his insides.

"_Lower!" _he called to Skarmory. He'd spotted Wallace and Milotic, Milotic lying on the outside rim of a wave and flashing opalescent under the lightning, like a long ribbon. Skarmory swooped down, and Dragonite followed them, its bulk above shielding them somewhat from the driving rain. Wallace waved to show he'd seen them, but then he and Milotic dove underwater, hiding inside the crest of the next wave that reared up beneath them so that they would not get caught inside it as it spilled over itself.

Something made Steven miss it: exhaustion, or the sudden adjustment of having only blazing lava to see by after the blinding white of a lightning flash. Either way, he did not notice the pair of fins cutting through the high black water twenty feet away, and Skarmory screeched and flapped furiously upwards when Kyogre lunged from the top of a mound of water. It would have knocked them down had Wallace's Milotic not tangled itself around one of Kyogre's flukes, spitting bright Dragon Pulses over its broad body, making it thrash; Drake's Salamence veered over to join it, adding its own attacks to the onslaught. The diversion lasted long enough to let Skarmory carry Steven out of reach, and finally Kyogre simply dove to escape the nuisance.

Steven yelled his thanks down at the water, knowing Wallace could not have heard it; nearby, Dragonite kept a wary eye on Groudon in case its attention turned their way. Juan and Kingdra had diverted its attention away from Ash and Brendan, and Juan's own Milotic reared up out of the water and combined its Hydro Pump with Kingdra's Surf to send a wave towards Groudon that kept it from aiming an attack at them. All of this seen erratically—either washed out by lightning, or half-lit by fire and lava and the color of whatever attacks were being traded, bright whites and greens and yellows reflecting off of the high waves as if inside an ever-shifting ice cavern.

"_Wallace!" _he yelled into the darkness, hoping his friend had surfaced for air; he could not see him.

Beside Steven, Dragonite jerked its head suddenly, its antennae twitching, holding a weak Barrier steady even as it gazed upward, as if searching for something it had somehow heard beneath the din of battle. As it did so, Flygon and Salamence swooped by again, so close that the rush of air in Salamence's wake felt like being narrowly missed by a speeding car. Flygon and Drake paused to circle Steven and Skarmory, Flygon looking upwards like Dragonite; even Salamence seemed to have sensed something, though its fury was too great to let it to more than glance briefly up into the rain, hissing. None of this went unnoticed by Drake.

"What's happening?" he called over to Steven. Steven had already taken a guess.

"I think it's dawn!" he called back. "If the sun's coming up, then Groudon can clear away the storm!"

"Well, it had better damn well hurry!"

Flygon swooped away, screeching, the buzzing of its wings mingling with the sound of thunder as it fired a Dragonbreath down into the sea at Kyogre, which missed. Steven stared directly up into the rain, his own exhaustion hitting him hard, wondering whether it was really finally dawn, and when he looked down again he noticed something strange: Juan's Kingdra peering at the sky, Juan himself leaning against its neck, gasping for breath. Dawn—surely it had to be—it had to be or they would all die out here, doing this—

Through a haze of weariness, it suddenly struck him that Dragonite and the other Pokémon were not looking east...just _up._ And what was more...

Groudon and Kyogre had suddenly slowed their movements. Together they both looked to the sky, Groudon tilting its head back with its fanged mouth clamped shut, as if it had heard a voice. The two creatures stared right up into the storm, and the gathered fighters with them, tense and too exhausted to feel fright at this new development, all waiting for some signal from the heavens.

_Let it be dawn—_they could all practically feel each other thinking it. _Let it be dawn—_

As if punctured, the clouds above suddenly rent asunder, leaving a gaping hole that showed them all their first glimpse in hours and hours of the sky. It was not empty. Like a veil being parted, the clouds had opened all the way through, and something was there among them, growing ever larger as it descended slowly but steadily, majestic and composed.

It was an enormous dragon.

Wingless and almost limbless, it coiled through the air like a serpent, twisting around itself, its scales shining a vivid green whenever lightning darted through the surrounding clouds. Lower it descended, and the storm parted wider for it, and the sea beneath it grew calmer, and what little wind there had been eased like the last gasping breath of a dying man, as if the dragon had willed it so. The gray world grew less hazy as the rain lessened, and both Kyogre and Groudon ignored each other entirely, facing skyward, watching the creature's approach.

The lull in the rain and Groudon's total distraction finally gave Steven enough time to drag himself shakily onto Skarmory's back, its metal feathers tearing his clothes and cutting his wet skin; his hands bled freely as he stabilized himself behind its wings, blood staining his dark suit darker. In the water below, Lance's Gyarados surged upwards, bearing him higher out of the waves on its head, and he thanked it before leaping straight onto the back of Dragonite, which had darted low over the heaving water, right past Gyarados. Lance and Dragonite made for Steven and Skarmory, dodging steam from Groudon's boiling island.

Steven dismissed Lance's call of _"Are you all right?" _with a wave of a bloodied hand, then yelled back at him, "Lance—that dragon! What is it? What's going on?"

Lance and Dragonite looked up at it as it left the clouds and continued straight towards them, slowly but determinedly, its body flashing green and gold. For a few seconds, as the dragon drew nearer, Lance looked bewildered, even frightened—and then his expression changed to one of awe when he recognized what he was seeing.

"_...Zumrud..."_

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Max sat huddled in a blanket, shivering and sneezing, May asleep beside him. Brock paced by the black window, still watching the storm, his expression set; it was difficult to tell whether he still felt any fear, or whether he had worried so much that he'd grown numb. They had left the mansion to find Ash and Brendan, and returned an hour later, soaking wet and empty-handed; since then Brock had been watching the battle between Kyogre and Groudon, shown to him in fits and starts during long flashes of lightning, the two creatures small and distant down in the center of the harbor. It was during one such lightning flash that he saw, or thought he saw, something else.

Startled, Brock blinked himself awake, then waited for another flash of lightning. What he had seen was still there, and he actually shoved open the glass door to go onto the balcony for a better view, shielding his eyes, his drying clothes soon soaked through once more.

"Brock?" Max called from inside. "Brock, what are you doing?"

"May, Max—come out here and see this, quick!"

The shout woke May. Max staggered up at once, tugging on his sister's elbow, and she protested only briefly before realizing something was wrong. Brock had leaned over the railing, and May and Max both bolted outside and stood on either side of him on the balcony, looking out through the rain over the crater. What they saw alarmed them so much that neither cared about getting drenched again.

"Oh..." May clapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. "What...What is it?"

"I don't know," said Brock. Rain dripped down his chin. "It looks like..."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"What's going on out there?" Stanley asked.

They had all been staring nervously at the window across the room, watching the rain ease up, as if some sluice that had been left open all night were being cranked shut again. Craig wiped his nose on his sleeve.

"Who gives a fuck?" he said moodily, but Brooke and Sierra both approached the window, Brooke pressing her face right up against the glass to better peer into the black night. When lightning flashed again, Sierra shrieked and leaped backwards. In so doing she tripped over Brooke's Crawdaunt and fell onto her rear, yelping.

"There's something out there!"

"Whaddya mean?" Craig asked at once, glancing between her and the outside. Brooke, still at the window, answered.

"Come look at this! Holy _shit..."_

Sierra scrambled back to her feet, and Craig and Stanley, along with their Pokémon, joined her at the window, Stanley's Golbat hovering. The rain that had lashed the glass in a blinding torrent had eased enough to where they could see clear down the crater during lightning flashes, and the next one showed them what was amiss.

"What the hell is that?" Craig squeaked.

"I think..." Brooke swallowed. "I think...it's a Pokémon..."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

From their rooftop, Archie, Shelly, Maxie, and Tabitha watched as Groudon and Kyogre stopped fighting. The two Pokémon had turned to face the dragon, Groudon raising its head and Kyogre peering above the surface of the rough water.

When the dragon reached them, it coiled itself up loosely, hovering fifty feet above them both; its segmented body undulated. A string of lightning threading through the clouds above sent a dazzling burst of green off of its scales, like a beacon, and even from such a great distance the four watchers could distinguish the red of its mouth and tongue when the dragon opened its jaws wide.

It screamed.

The noise took a few seconds to reach the shore, but when it did, everyone heard it and saw it and felt it, as a shockwave that passed first over the water and then through their bodies and then up, up, up along the crater of Sootopolis, which became a funnel that magnified the noise, sending it booming across the surrounding ocean and into the sky above. The sound shook their bones. When it ended they heard it still, ringing through their heads, and it was with the echoes of that enormous scream still in their ears that they watched the massive dragon coil itself up more tightly above Kyogre and Groudon.

The pair had both flinched beneath the noise, and cried out at the dragon—but not in unison, and not with the same rage that they had used to challenge each other. It was almost as if they were complaining, each trying to argue its own case before the newcomer. In response, the dragon hissed so violently that Kyogre sank itself a little in the water, and Groudon lowered itself to all fours. When Groudon rumbled—as if speaking under its breath—the dragon thwacked it with the end of its tail, but lightly, so that Groudon only flinched. The blow would have toppled a building.

The dragon looked between the two creatures as Kyogre peeked back out of the water and Groudon shook its sore head, raising itself back onto its hind legs. All three had yellow eyes that glittered in the lightning.

The dragon roared again. This time, the sound was not so loud, and there was something about it that the humans on shore almost thought they could understand, some note that, coupled with the creature's behavior, seemed to make its meaning suddenly clear. It was not the mighty roar of a chief among titans, asserting its dominance over fellow gods just barely within its control. It was the annoyed cry of a long-suffering creature whose patience had finally worn out, screaming at its bickering, bratty siblings to stop making a racket.

Kyogre blew a peevish waterspout. Like a javelin, the dragon darted its long neck into the water; Kyogre breached a moment later, writhing indignantly, hitting the water on its side and sending a colossal ripple in all directions. When the dragon resumed its position, Kyogre and Groudon gazed up at it together, and it shifted its head to look between them in turn, hissing and spitting.

Seen side-by-side, the three monstrous Pokémon indeed looked very much like siblings. Kyogre, deep blue but patterned with red, the god of the seas; Groudon, bright red but patterned with blue, the god of the earth; and this thing, the eldest of all of them: the emerald dragon, patterned with a yellow that matched its bright eyes, the god of the heavens which spread equally and always over land and sea at once. It uncoiled itself, screeching once more, and Kyogre and Groudon both turned away, as if sullen.

Groudon dug its claws into the hardened lava on which it stood, digging so powerfully that it made the earth shiver, and its spiked tail was the last thing to vanish as it dug deep into its pillar of lava, seeking the open vein of magma on the seafloor below, and the warmth of the deep earth from whence it came. Kyogre dove, and was lost to sight at once; the waves it made fanned out across the choppy water of the harbor. The dragon was left alone in the rain.

And yet it was not raining anymore—at least, not so powerfully. Lightning still flickered through the clouds, but the lightning had weakened, the cloud thinned to tatters; great swathes of the sky could be seen now, and it was not black but indigo, even pink in the east. Dawn had come. The dragon turned its head as though noticing this before gazing straight up into the swirling clouds, as if staring them down, willing them to disappear. They did.

The sea retreated unnaturally quickly. The humans watched it happen, watched the flood sweep back in a thunderous gurgling rush like water draining from a sink, sucking many tons of debris down into what was left of the harbor. But the water there was now no rougher than it ought to have been on any ordinary morning. The rain stopped completely.

The dragon surveyed all of this, sweeping back and forth a few times across the center of the crater, and seemed satisfied with the results of its inspection. It flew upwards again, becoming a bright green ribbon when it rose high enough to catch the first rays of sunlight peeking over the top of the crater, and then paused, its segmented body frozen in an arc as it gazed one last time over the ancient hollow of Sootopolis City. The side of its head was facing them now, and its great golden eye blazed from afar, and the four of them each felt—though no one voiced it—that the emerald dragon beheld them all, tiny specks on a rooftop a thousand feet below, and knew them for the insignificant little creatures whose skittering had woken it from its nap. Then it turned and soared back into the heavens, vanishing behind the wispy remnants of the storm. By the time the last cloud evaporated, there was not even a hint of green in the vast, lightening sky.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Brendan gasped and spluttered as Ash pulled him out of the water by the back of his shirt, throwing him sideways across Swampert, which was treading the becalmed water. One residual wave was just high enough to break against Swampert's body, splashing over Brendan's head, dislodging his hat. Ash snatched it up before it sank.

"Thanks," Brendan managed, when he had sat upright and Ash had handed him his hat. He wrung it out, then clutched it in one hand, craning his neck back to gawk at the heavens, shaking. On Ash's shoulder, Pikachu shook out its wet fur, sending droplets flying; when its cheeks sparked, electricity crackled over its damp body, making Ash flinch as it stung the side of his face and neck.

Across the water, on the other side of Groudon's smoking island, the other fighters gathered together; Ash and Brendan could see Drake and Steven swooping to retrieve Juan and Wallace from the waves. When Wallace tossed his shredded cowl over his shoulder, water sprayed from it, the droplets catching the morning light and flashing in a multitude of colors.

"What...what just happened?" Ash said aloud. Pikachu's nose twitched. "They're gone. Groudon and Kyogre both just...just went away..."

"I've seen that thing before," Brendan said. "That green dragon."

Ash and Pikachu exchanged glances.

"Are you sure, Brendan?"

"Yeah." He spared another glance for the sky, but the creature did not reappear. "It was a few months ago, up near Fortree City. I was lying in my sleeping bag one night, looking up at the sky, and that thing—that dragon—it flew across the moon." He paused. "I'd never seen a Pokémon like that before."

"What is it?"

"I don't know." Brendan donned his hat. "Honestly...I thought it was a dream..."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The water had receded, leaving their rooftop shelter no longer at its edge but a hundred feet away from the harbor, so choked with wreckage that someone could easily have walked from one end to the other without ever touching land. Dawn stained pink the few tiny wisps of cloud still drifting across the circle of sky above the crater, with only one or two of the very brightest stars still visible; the island of lava in the center of the water sent up a column of opaque white smoke, teased apart by the breeze as it wafted upwards, as though an enormous campfire had been extinguished. From all around them came the sound of water dripping and trickling and sloshing, but to them it felt like a sudden, supernatural silence.

It took several minutes for the world to seem real. Archie, Shelly, Maxie, and Tabitha looked numb, pale, soaked; all but Shelly bled freely, and Shelly clutched at her shoulder off and on. Above and behind them, the city started to stir; flickering lights appeared in a handful of places along the crater rim, presumably created by Electric-type Pokémon. Before and below them, color began to creep into the gray water, and once in a while the noise of a distant shout or voice drifted over their heads.

"So...the super-ancient Pokémon weren't only Groudon and Kyogre..."

Tabitha grit his teeth tighter against the pain in his leg, pulling himself up straighter and propping his back against a piece of wood. Water dripped steadily from his soaking undershirt, goosebumps visible on his bare arms.

"There was a third Pokémon..."

Shelly's long red hair fell like a wet curtain across her face; she pulled it back to gaze in exhaustion at the empty sky.

"Was that...what we disturbed at Sky Pillar?" she managed. "That dragon Pokémon?"

A breeze wafted down from the top of the crater, making them shudder; Shelly's teeth chattered. In the growing light it had become easier to see, and the water still swirling around them looked strangely tinted with their mingled blood.

Tabitha reached out as if to touch Maxie, but did not. He was half-conscious, glassy-eyed and dazed, his mouth and chin and overcoat bloody as he took quick, shallow breaths.

"Maxie?" Tabitha tried quietly, brushing cold fingers along his widow's peak. "Maxie, can you hear me?"

Maxie laughed. It was a horrible noise: quiet and half-choked, the sound itself strained, his eyes widening as he stared up at the lightening sky.

"After all...our fruitless scheming, and frantic efforts..."

He coughed up a mouthful of blood, staining his teeth, making him shake.

"That one Pokemon's simple action...puts everything...right again. As if nothing...had happened..."

"Maxie, don't talk." Tabitha wiped the blood from his face, where a trickle of it had run out of the corner of his mouth into the foul water. "Please, just stay still."

He stifled a cry when something about the way he had shifted sent pain shooting through his leg. When he looked down at it he saw, through a rip in his bloodstained pants, a sliver of bone poking out of his shin, gleaming white. He grit his teeth and closed his eyes for a second, then returned his attention to Maxie.

"Maxie, you have to stay awake," he said, shivering as he spoke, water dripping from his hair and running down the side of his face. "Stay awake. We need to get help."

Maxie closed his eyes again and gave a sigh that emptied his broken chest; when he drew breath again, his right side crumpled weirdly instead of rising.

"Maxie?"

Again he breathed; again the right side of his chest fell instead of rose.

"Stay awake." Tabitha felt that alien sensation of panic begin to stir inside him. "Please stay awake. I don't—I can't take your place."

But even as he said it, he knew he would not have to. Maxie was not cruel enough to leave him so heavy a burden. Tabitha had orders, and he had not forgotten them, even if they frightened him: _In such an event, you are to disband the team immediately. Do you understand?_

"I don't understand, Maxie," he admitted. "I don't understand what to do without you."

Maxie did not respond. Tabitha wiped fresh blood from his mouth, then sat staring at the dark patch on the front of his coat; he became only distantly aware that the entire rest of the world existed. His exhausted mind whirred, running through a checklist of what to do, what was important—go for help, get to safety, keep Maxie warm and safe and alive until aid could be found—and he knew he could do absolutely none of these things. He could perhaps drag himself across the roof, if he so desired, and that was all.

Tabitha glanced over at Shelly, but she did not notice him; Archie took all her attention. His eyes were open, but he did not seem conscious; he sat with his head lolled to the side like a doll that had been propped up, his unseeing eyes gazing up over Shelly's shoulder at the sky, already beginning to turn yellow over the easternmost lip of the crater.

"Archie, you said you wouldn't do this." Shelly's voice shook. "Remember? In the sub, you said...never again..."

Ignoring her own exhaustion, and the shooting pain in her shoulder when she moved her arm, she felt his pulse, but there was no need to check it. Every time his heart beat, fresh blood dribbled from the gash across his arm and chest.

"It's all right, Archie," she tried. "Everything's back to normal. See? Kyogre and Groudon are gone now...They've calmed down. Everything's all right..."

She wanted to yell at him—as if that would help, as if he was doing this on purpose. The morning breeze stirred again, making her shudder so hard she had to clench her jaw.

"Wake up, Archie. Please."

He stirred, then groaned. Shelly stifled a sigh of relief when he blinked and managed to raise his chin a few inches off of his chest.

"What...happened? What...what was that...thing..."

"Kyogre and Groudon both flew off to who knows where," said Shelly. She swallowed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, trying to sound composed despite how violently she was shaking. "The weather in Hoenn has returned to its normal state. It's...Archie, it's over. They're gone. They're both gone."

Archie shifted a little, raising a hand; it fell back to his side, splashing the bloody water. He still looked dazed, blinking as if very sleepy, his chin falling down.

"Archie—"

Shelly reached for his arm, but the motion hurt her shoulder, and she hissed, flinching. When she spoke again it was through gritted teeth.

"Archie, stay awake. Can you hear me? You have to stay awake now. We need to find help."

Archie jerked his head up off of his chest. His gaze drifted to the place in the sky where the dragon had vanished, and he broke into a strange grin—genuine in its amusement, but with a faraway look in his eyes that unsettled Shelly.

"Heh. Maybe...What we were trying to do, was something...small...even meaningless...to Pokémon..."

He laughed, and it was as Maxie's laugh had been: strained and awed, the laugh of a man who had realized something so overwhelming about his life that his mind had buckled under the weight.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Dawn came quickly, as it always did this time of year. Though the sun itself could not yet be seen inside the high crater walls, the edges of its spreading glow turned the sky a deep, resonant blue, and one by one the stars disappeared. After a while only the moon remained visible, and even it did not amount to much: a tiny slit of light, only just born, struggling to shine down on the quiet world below.

Sootopolis stirred. The boldest of its residents had taken to the streets as soon as the weather changed, watching the battle end, the sea wash back into the harbor; their footsteps and voices punctuated the ever-present sound of water, dripping from everything and running in rivulets down the streets. When five minutes of perfect calm stretched into ten, and ten into twenty, the rest of the city began to follow suit, creeping out from their houses and hiding places, people and Pokémon filling the streets, dissolving the silence.

Though there was no power, lights began to go up everywhere, dotting the inhabited side of the crater with pinpoints of red and yellow: fire and steady electric light, the work of Pokémon. All throughout Sootopolis, people looked fearfully out at the empty, debris-choked harbor, where Groudon's island still smoked—was it a temporary truce? A pause for the creatures to catch their breath?—and some said _yes, _while others said _no, _as water dripped from broken lampposts and a breeze rippled the surfaces of the pools left behind on the flat rooftops.

People tensed, waiting, or else hurried to find help or friends; some remained indoors, still afraid. But when it became clear to even the most shaken observers that it was going to be a beautiful morning, the streets filled even more thickly with people and Pokémon. A girl tugged on her mother's hand, stubbornly leading her through the worried crowd even as she asked her questions.

"Mom, what happened to the big Pokémon? Are they going to come back?"

"I—I don't know, Kiri...Slow down..."

"But we have to find Dad!"

They stopped short when a rushing noise drew the crowd's attention. From the bottom of the crater flew a pair of Pokémon, zigzagging back and forth over the rooftops, the men riding them shouting down at the people gathered in the streets and on roofs below. Every few blocks, they paused and hovered, and during these pauses people recognized them as the current and former Hoenn League Champions. After a few minutes, when they were close enough to hear and be heard, someone called up at them.

"What's going on?" came a man's voice from a doorway. "What happened out there?"

Wallace slid off of a weak and pitted Metagross and landed with surprising grace onto the cobblestone below, his tattered cowl still dripping water even as he straightened and called in a hoarse voice over the heads of the anxious crowd.

"It's over, everyone!"

"What do you mean _over?" _someone demanded. Now Steven called down from Skarmory.

"They're gone!" he said. "They're gone, and we don't think they're coming back. Officer Jenny will be up here soon to get things organized, we're just trying to spread the word." He scanned the crowd. "Start doing tallies of your neighborhood, make sure everyone's accounted for! The police will be here soon!"

Steven and Skarmory took off for the higher reaches of the city. Wallace leaped, and Metagross psychically caught him, levitating him onto its scarred back once more; he spent half a minute reassuring the nervous crowd as best as he could before he, too, kept going, spreading the word. Everyone watched them leave, except for Kiri. She had spotted her father further up the street, and dragged her mother towards him as he fought his way through the crowd, nearly tripping in a rain-filled pothole.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Lance rubbed the side of Dragonite's neck just above its burn, watching Swampert scramble out of the calm water and onto a pile of wreckage onshore; as soon as it had its footing, Brendan and Ash both turned and waved up at him weakly, to signal they'd made it. Lance returned the gesture, then squeezed his eyes shut to let his vision steady before glancing in every direction he could think of to check. The kids were safe—Wallace and Steven were covering the northern part of the city—Juan and Drake the south—the sky above was empty, the harbor was empty, Groudon and Kyogre and the emerald dragon had all gone.

His grip slackened, and for a second he might have fallen, but Dragonite nudged him to consciousness again. Lance pressed his forehead against Dragonite's scales and let himself breathe, trying to come to grips with reality, water trickling out of his hair to drip from his chin. He had a dazed thought that perhaps this half-hour wasn't real, that when he'd fallen into the sea he'd lost consciousness, and dawn and peace and the dragon's miracle were just some strange little death-dream before the very end. Then Dragonite nudged him again, and he forced his eyes open, the pale light of morning a physical relief after hours of seeing only by lightning and fire.

No...this was real. He was too exhausted for it not to be.

Dragonite hovered over the ruined harbor, and Lance forced himself to think of what to do next. He had to report this to his superiors—call Bart somehow—get Dragonite and Gyarados tended to—figure out what to do with—

The realization hit Lance like a blow, so much so that he started, suddenly alert. Immediately he heeled Dragonite, and they spent a couple of minutes gliding back and forth across the crescent-shaped harbor, higher and higher in the air, scanning the base of the city. It was Dragonite who spotted the four of them at last, and when it reached their rooftop, the downdraft from its beating wings sent ripples through the standing water.

Lance slid off of Dragonite with a splash, which itself looked so weak that it swayed where it stood. He took two steps forward, then buckled to his knees and fell, catching himself with his splayed palms so that he did not collapse face-first onto the rooftop. Another man might have crumpled and lay there, blind and dizzy with exhaustion; Lance found it within himself to stand again, if slowly, and in visible pain. His clothes dripped.

"I think it's over now," he said.

His broken voice was not his own, and he swallowed, then coughed. Colorful lights burst across his vision, and he swayed, shielding his eyes with one hand.

"Where are the Red and Blue Orbs?"

No one answered him, and he looked up, his gaze landing his own bundled cape, lying forgotten in the corner of the rooftop not three feet away. He nudged it, and heard its contents clink heavily; only once he had done so did he seem to register how bloody was the water swirling around his boots. He swore.

"What...what went on out here? What happened to all of you?"

Neither Tabitha nor Shelly answered.


	33. Chapter 33

"And I think that's really the most important thing to bear in mind from now on," said the first analyst. He tapped his pen against the rim of the circular table, addressing the other people seated there; the camera panned to show their collective reaction. "I don't need to remind you, but Stanwick Stone, the president of the Devon Corporation, issued a statement to the media earlier this week saying that Devon is going to actually look into seeing what it can do to help rebuild infrastructure out in the east, out of pocket. And naturally people are still trying to work out what that will mean for the shareholders, or what—"

"Well, that's one thing," the woman with glasses interrupted, "and the fact is that we don't know when we'll see that money, or what Devon is going to be able to do, exactly what assistance they're going to be able to provide. I think, if we're looking at the short-term logistical—that is, the work that needs to be done _right_ _now,_ and where the money is going to come from for that, I think you have to look not only at the what the government has been doing, but also at the funds that are available immediately from elsewhere. And we've really been seeing a tremendous outpouring of individual financial support, not only from the rest of Hoenn, but from other regions as well. I think that's really something to focus on at this point when we're still trying figure out what needs to be dealt with first in terms of infrastructure. Obviously, the number one priority is still all of the people and Pokémon who've been uprooted; we can't start making promises about what's going to be rebuilt and how until we have some more numbers and can get a feel for what the accessible resources are—financial and material—because with something on this scale..."

"I completely agree. Actually on that note—and I'm sure you've heard this already, but last night Sinnoh News Now broke the story—Cyrus Rothferne, one of the wealthiest businessmen in Sinnoh, has actually spoken out to the press and offered to _personally, _out of his private assets, donate something on the order of—"

Max's attention wandered. This was not why he had tuned into this program, and he twisted around in his seat, looking across the lobby of the crowded Pokémon Center. Through the press of trainers, he could not readily spot his friends; it took a glimpse of bright yellow fur to show him where Ash stood with Pikachu perched atop his cap. A Chansey waded through the crowd ahead of Nurse Joy, both carrying trays laden with Pokéballs.

"—almost impossible at this point, considering the amount of damage to almost all major eastern ports in the Hoenn region. And furthermore, there's been a lot of talk from various corners about the possibility of the recurrence of both of the—"

A young woman sitting on the sofa next to Max asked her Medicham for the remote; when it handed it over, she turned the volume up, watching the analysts with a furrowed brow.

"—up for debate. So to address this critical issue, we're turning to the opinion of the Hoenn region's leading Pokémon expert, Professor Birch, who joins us today from from his lab in Littleroot Town. Professor Birch has been actively—"

Max whirled back around to face the TV, his eyes widening behind his glasses.

"Brendan!" he called, then remembered himself and stood up, leaning over the back of the sofa to holler across the room over everyone's heads. "Brendan, it's your dad! He's on now!"

Brendan, followed by Ash, May, and Brock, apologized their way through the crowd; when they emerged from it they gathered around the back of the sofa, ignoring a reproachful look from the girl with the Medicham. On TV, the analysts had turned to speak with Professor Birch, whose face took up one of the large screens mounted in the wall behind the round table.

"—for joining us, professor," the woman with glasses said. "And so I'm just going to cut right to the chase, because there's only one question that's been on everyone's minds for the past week, and that is: _will_ this happen again? Are these Pokémon going to come back and do this again in a month, or a year, or ten years—and if so, what can we do about it?"

Professor Birch had clearly been expecting this question, because he launched into an answer right away, speaking quickly.

"It's difficult to say, to be honest, but my thought—and this is my genuine opinion as a professional, not just what I'm hoping for—is that Kyogre and Groudon will _not_ cause another disaster in our lifetime. If you take a look at the historical weather data that we've been able to put together, you can see that there's a definite correlation—"

The kids watched with rapt attention as Professor Birch spoke. The subject was ear-catching enough that more people joined them as the minutes passed, until nearly half the crowded Pokémon Center had gathered near the television, watching Professor Birch's hand sweep over a colorful graph beside him. Once or twice the screen flickered, as if about to shut off, but the Voltorb hooked up to it Charged itself and fed the TV more power.

Across the room, crammed into a booth near the cracked glass window in the far corner, two men sat talking quietly, shielded from view by the bulk of a Dragonite standing beside them, one of its arms in a sling. Lance had a tall cup of coffee on the table in front of him, and sipped it periodically. Steven had rolled the sleeves of his suit up so as not to chafe the many bandages on his forearms. Beside Steven, his Aron scuttled across the upholstered seat; Steven did not seem to notice that it had gotten hold of his wallet and was snacking on the loose change inside, nudging the wallet back and forth and munching on the coins as they fell out.

"So you're headed back home on Friday?"

"Soon as I wrap up my after-action report, yeah." Lance sighed. "I have a feeling HQ's going to think I made most of it up. At least the expense report's not a nightmare."

There was a _ping _as a coin from Steven's wallet fell onto the tile floor. Aron dove off of the seat after it, hitting the floor with a sound much louder than its small size seemed to warrant. Steven glanced down at it to make sure it was all right, then said, "What about Kyogre and Groudon? What's the latest on them?"

"The Weather Institute's still tracking them for us," Lance answered—in a low voice, though no one nearby could have hoped to eavesdrop, given the general noise. Most of the room had converged around the TV. "Bart and HQ are working something out to keep permanent tabs on them. Looks like they're both headed up towards Fiore now, nice and quiet...probably want to go back to sleep after their little scuffle. Just looking for someplace where they won't be disturbed."

"And what if they start acting up again?"

Lance sipped his coffee, then shrugged.

"We think they won't," he said, "but the higher-ups are putting together an action plan in case they do. That's why they want me back early, to hear my report in person. For now, HQ's negotiating with the Ranger Union to get the Fiore branch to keep an eye on Kyogre and Groudon full-time, as long as they're in the area. Personally, though, I'm more worried about the third one—Rayquaza."

"You like your dragons, don't you?"

Lance smiled briefly, but said, "The problem is that it's impossible to track. Whatever ability it has that makes it able to stop the weather keeps it invisible to satellites, too. It's up in the ozone layer, we think, flying around—but we'd like to know exactly where it is at all times."

"How come? It seems like it doesn't cause any trouble."

"It's not that. It's the fact that everybody and their grandmother knows it exists now." Lance grimaced. "I can think of some unscrupulous folks back home who'd kill to get their hands on that thing."

He fell silent, his expression dark, and sipped his coffee moodily. Touching on a subject like this made Steven ask, after a moment, "Those guys still down for the count?", and Lance did not have to ask who he meant.

"Yeah. I've told Jenny to lay off of them for now, let them recoup. She's got her hands full anyway, trying to get the harbor organized. Place is a zoo even with the ticket system."

"It'll be a long time before things are back to normal around here," Steven agreed. "Or anywhere in Hoenn, for that matter." He paused, then said thoughtfully, "Might swing by the field hospital later, see what they're up to. They're in the third one, right?"

Lance nodded automatically, as if he were thinking of something else, then took another swig of coffee. Dragonite stretched and folded its leathery wings, scratching the base of its antennae with its good claw; the sound of the TV on the other side of the lobby filled the lull.

"So...What are you gonna do when you get back home?" Steven asked at last. "They gonna throw you on another case, or are you gonna take a break?"

Lance looked baleful, and exhaled dramatically over his coffee cup, leaning back in his seat.

"You know, I hate to admit it, but I wouldn't mind hitting the brakes for a while," he said. "I've been seriously considering taking some time off from work, maybe doing more League stuff. I've been really out of touch with the Plateau lately. Didn't even watch the last couple of tournaments. Heck, the first time I saw the winner of the last Silver Conference was when I showed up for his courtesy challenge after the closing ceremony." Another contemplative coffee sip; across the room, Professor Birch answered an analyst's question with another diagram. "Honestly—I feel like it's time to ease up on work a little bit and get involved with the League again. My Pokémon and I need some time together that doesn't involve risking our necks."

Dragonite made a noise that sounded like a chuckle.

"Well, if you do, be careful," said Steven good-naturedly. "You know how things are off the field. They might make you start doing commercials."

"I've done a couple before, when I first took the Championship." Keeping a straight face, Lance added, "Don't tell the captain."

The two men exchanged amused looks.

Lance took one last swig of coffee before setting the cup aside, and Dragonite made a small noise. Lance gazed up at it.

"You want the rest?"

Dragonite nodded. Lance handed it the tall cup, setting it carefully between the claws of its uninjured arm; it threw its head back and downed the rest of the coffee in one gulp, licking its muzzle in satisfaction before crushing the cup and tossing it into a nearby bin.

"Well," said Lance, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "I've got to get going. Have some other things to do today...just wanted to made sure I said goodbye to the kids before they catch their ferry." He jerked his head in the general direction of the other side of the room. "Actually, I thought Wallace did, too...Do you know where he is?"

"Down at the harbor," said Steven. "He said he'd wait for them there, he and Juan have got things to do downtown anyway. Need me to pass on a message or anything?"

"No, it's fine. I'll catch him tomorrow."

Lance and Steven both stood up, Aron dodging around their feet in its quest for coins. Steven finally retrieved his wallet from the floor, making the indignant Aron bark once.

"Be seeing you, I guess," said Lance, and would have tossed his cape over his shoulder if it hadn't been hanging straight already. "Good luck with everything around here. And thanks for giving me a hand with this mission."

"Thanks for letting me."

The two men clasped hands, Lance being careful not to squeeze Steven's bandaged fingers. Beside them, the sunlight slanting through the window cast strange shadows on the table, since the window's glass was cracked top to bottom.

"Stay in touch, all right?" Lance told Steven. "And call me if something comes up out here. A lot of people are going to want to take advantage of Hoenn now."

"Yeah. I know." Something flashed in Steven's eyes. "If you hear anything on the grapevine at work, let Wallace and me know. And stay out of trouble, all right?"

Lance and Dragonite exchanged looks. Dragonite chuckled again as Lance ran a hand through his hair.

"No can do," he said, feigning resignation. "I'd get fired."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

The walk down to the harbor seemed to take no time at all, perhaps because Ash and his friends had made it so often over the past few days. None of them paid much attention to where they were going as they walked and talked, and yet they eventually found themselves only a few blocks away from the loud, busy quay, and could spot the familiar police barrier further down between the rows of buildings. Seeing this, they stopped in an alley so that Brock could count all of the ferry passes again; without them, they wouldn't be allowed through the blockade to the harbor proper.

"Hold it right there, twerps!"

Though the voice was familiar, they had not heard it in so long that it took Ash and his friends by surprise. It was Brendan, however, who looked the most puzzled as a trio of people—or rather, two people and a Meowth—suddenly leaped from behind a dumpster and struck a strange pose in the middle of the empty street, right in front of them all.

"Not _you _guys," Max groaned. "Aw man..."

Brock, May, and Ash all looked exasperated; even Pikachu sighed and shook its head. Only Brendan showed any interest as the strangers recited a motto, and when they finished and struck another pose, he reached beneath his hat to scratch his head.

"Team Rocket?" he echoed, his gaze darting between the large R on the front of their shirts. "What, is that some ripoff of Team Aqua and Team Magma?"

"What? No!" said Jessie. "We're light-years ahead of those amateurs!"

"We were first!" James insisted. "It's not our fault they stole our theme. Trademark infringement! Brand dilution!"

_"Waaah-buffet!"_

"What?" Brendan asked.

"These guys are the weirdos who follow us around and try to steal our Pokémon," said May. Brendan's expression brightened.

"Oh, yeah, I remember you saying that."

"They're not even good at it," said Max. "They have all these _robots…"_

"They definitely don't look tough," Brendan agreed. "But—whoa, that Meowth can really talk?"

"Put a sock in it, new twerp!" said Meowth, as Brendan scanned him with his PokéDex.

"Have you three been following us this _entire_ _time?"_ Ash asked them. "Ever since Monsu Island?"

"Of course!" James sniffed. "It's what we do!"

"But how did you even get here from Mossdeep?" was Max's question. "There aren't any regular ferries..."

"The same way we get everything else done," said Meowth proudly. "Team Rocket ingenuity!"

"Not sure if that's the word I would use," Brock mused, looking between the Rockets. "Anyway, can you three not bother us just this once? If we're late, we probably won't be able to catch another ferry until next week." He waved the tickets in his hand for emphasis, then tucked them into a pocket of his vest. "Come on, you guys. Let's hurry it up."

The others did not have time to react—Jessie and James darted forward and snatched Pikachu right off of Ash's head. Ash grabbed for it and missed. Instead of running, however, Team Rocket began fawning over Pikachu as if it were a newborn, James actually holding it up and rubbing his face against its fur. The sight was so bizarre that Ash and his friends just stared. Brendan took the opportunity to scan Wobbuffet.

"Here's our little Pikachu all safe an' sound!" said Meowth; Jessie added, "We've been worried sick about you!"

"But why?" asked Ash. "You're always trying to _steal_ Pikachu..."

"Exactly!" said James. "Poaching this prize Pikachu is our primary purpose in life! What would we do with ourselves if the little guy disappeared?"

Pikachu squirmed in his grip, its cheeks sparking.

"Well, give Pikachu back!" Ash demanded. "Or else!"

Pikachu's cheeks sparked harder in warning; Team Rocket, however, looked delighted. In fact all three of them seemed near tears at the long-awaited joy of this reunion, and James actually daubed at the corner of his eye with his sleeve.

"To think we almost lost our little pal!" he said, his voice cracking. "The tragedy! The horror!"

"Why don't ya give us a shockin'," added Meowth, "for old times' sake!"

Pikachu blinked at them, then shrugged and obeyed, if more gently than usual. Jessie, James, and Meowth howled as the current zapped them, charring the edges of their uniforms.

"Just the way it should be!" sobbed James, his clothes smoking slightly.

Pikachu nervously patted his head in a reassuring sort of way, then suddenly leaped out of his grasp; Jessie tried to grab it, but it used her hair as a springboard to make an even further leap all the way into Ash's arms. When Team Rocket tried to follow, they found themselves face-to-face with Brendan's Swampert, raised up on its hind legs and leering. The trio gulped and backed away a pace.

"We really don't have time for this, guys," said Brock, at the back of the group. "Can't we save it for later?"

Ash tugged at his cap.

"Right. Pikachu—you know what to do!"

"Can I give it a try?"

Pikachu stopped short, and Ash, May, and Brock turned to look at Brendan before exchanging nonplussed looks. After a second, Ash shrugged.

"Sure, Brendan, if you want to."

Brendan grinned and tugged at his hat.

"All right, Kip, let 'em have it! Ice Beam!"

Jessie, James, and Meowth yelped as the attack encased them in several inches of solid ice, which immediately began to sweat in the sun. Swampert snorted, and Brendan reached beneath his hat to scratch the side of his head, perplexed.

"Uh...I don't think I did it right," he admitted. "You said you usually knock 'em flying, right?"

"This works too," Brock said, adjusting the strap of his backpack. "Come on, guys, we've gotta find the ferry before they stop boarding. We don't want to be late."

And with that, they turned and departed, Swampert remaining outside its Pokéball and following Brendan on foot. Jessie, James, and Meowth were left frozen to the spot, watching the children continue strolling down the cobbled street towards the harbor. A Wingull that had been foraging in a nearby pile of debris flapped up and perched on James's head.

"You twerps can't just leave us here!" Jessie yelled at their receding backs. "Hey! _Hey! We've got our dignity!"_

Startled by the noise, the Wingull took off again, leaving a bit of soggy garbage atop James's head.

"The nerve of those little punks!" he said, as the kids disappeared from sight around a corner. "Giving us the cold shoulder after all the hard work it took to get here. It makes my blood boil!"

"Yeah, well, I'm freezin'," said Meowth. He tried to wriggle free of the layer of ice coating his body, with no success. "Anybody got a plan?"

"You're the one who's supposed to come up with the plans!" Jessie reminded him. "Come on, Meowth, hurry up and think of something!"

"I'm thinkin' we just gotta wait."

The Wingull returned, swooping down to pluck its bit of food from James's head before flapping away; James yelped when it accidentally pulled out a few hairs, too.

It took ten minutes for the three of them to exhaust themselves bickering. The afternoon sun sliding between the rooftops eased their discomfort somewhat, and the trio finally lapsed into silence, enjoying the warmth of the sun on their heads and listening to the many sounds of the nearby harbor.

"You know," said James, apropos of nothing, "I've been thinking..."

"That's new," said Meowth. His whiskers twitched. "What about?"

"Well...We three are the top Team Rocket members in the Hoenn region..."

"We're the _only _Team Rocket members in the Hoenn region."

"...and the way I see it, we've blown our chance to snag a trio of super-ancient, super-powerful, super_-_rare Pokémon for the Boss. What happens when we call him up and he asks why we didn't nab him one of those legendary Pokémon he's been seeing videos of on TV?"

The fact that it would realistically have taken the full might of the Team Rocket apparatus to catch Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza did not enter into any of their heads. The three pondered the Boss's potential displeasure at their failure to do the impossible as the ice around them continued to melt; Jessie's teeth started chattering.

"So what do we tell him?" she asked at last. "We've got to call him sooner or later."

"And he'll be hopping mad when we do," said James.

"You two need ta toughen up," was Meowth's answer. "Da Boss is gonna be real happy when we call him up and tell him about all our hard work!"

"He is?" James sounded doubtful. "But we haven't caught him _any _legendary Pokémon. Or Pikachu."

"That doesn't matter, 'cause we did something just as good."

"Like what?" Jessie snapped. "What do we have to show for this whole thing except nearly drowning about ten times?"

"We wiped da slate clean!"

Jessie and James exchanged looks.

"I don't quite follow," said James.

"We paved da way!" Meowth sounded annoyed that Jessie and James had not read his mind. "Don't ya get it? All those other goons are outta commission. Team Aqua and Team Magma are busted up for good, and that means the whole Hoenn region's one big buffet for da Boss to sink his Team Rocket teeth into. Just imagine how happy he'll be when we tell him that we cleared those small-time acts outta the way so that some _real _bad guys can come show 'em how it's done!"

Jessie and James digested this; their expressions brightened as they did.

"That _is _a good point," Jessie said, still absently trying to free herself from the melting ice. "What counts is that Aqua and Magma have dissolved, and we're still here."

"Which means Team Rocket takes the credit, right?" said Meowth.

Jessie, James, and Meowth basked in the happy fantasy of this; the only thing that kept them from fully expressing it was the fact that they couldn't move yet, though the puddle of water around them had begun to widen, trickling between the cobblestones. James wrenched his shoulders hard, and the ice around his upper body cracked loudly.

"Yes, of course!" he said, quite delighted. A piece of ice flaked off of him and hit the wet ground. "And once the Boss gets wind of our success, I know exactly what he'll say. 'Thanks to James (and the other two) for destroying Team Aqua and Magma, I believe I'll let those sterling employees of mine run the whole Hoenn region!'"

"Promotions and bonuses!"

"We'll be the top of da heap!"

_"Waaah-buffet!"_

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"This is it," said Brock, looking from the stack of tickets in his hand to the name painted on the side of the battered boat the policeman had ushered them towards. "Looks like we're just in time, too."

The ferry was packed already, though this was perhaps because most of its occupants had chosen to remain topsides, milling about on the deck instead of going below. A young man and a Cacturne stood leaning against the railing with their elbows on it, watching the crowded shore; when both leaped up as if stung, Brendan looked over his shoulder to see what had caught the pair's attention. The answer was apparent at once.

"Well, look who it is!"

Ash and his friends all turned, and Brendan waved to Juan and Wallace as they approached from up the harbor, the crowd making way for the pair of them and a good portion of it whispering excitedly in their wake. The kids hurried up to meet them.

"I hope you all weren't planning on leaving without a final goodbye!" Wallace told them. "We were beginning to wonder whether you'd make it."

As always, he looked polished, flawless—despite the dark bruises peeking beneath the collar of his shirt, and the still-healing gash that ran from under one ear all the way across his cheekbone. Someone less glamorous would have looked battered; Wallace just seemed even more handsome, and a bit rakish. As Juan called Brendan and Ash off to the side, Wallace addressed himself to May, Brock, and Max, bowing lightly.

"I had wanted to see you all one last time before you departed," he told the three of them. "It was a pleasure to meet such talented young people, even in such unfortunate circumstances as these were. I regret that we only had a few opportunities to get to know one another. May, Max—please give your father my best regards whenever you see him next; I confess that I can't recall the last time we spoke. And Brock—I must unhappily admit again that I have never once managed to find myself in Kanto, but I promise to pay the Pewter Gym a visit the first time the opportunity arises."

"You'll have to come see the Cerulean City Gym, too," Brock replied. "My friend runs it, and she specializes in Water-types. I'm sure she'd love to meet a Water-type master."

"It really was an honor to meet you, sir," May said. "I mean, after all...You're the best coordinator in all of Hoenn."

_"And _the Champion of the whole Hoenn League!" Max added.

Wallace only laughed.

"Such lavish praise!" He smiled. "Well, I wouldn't go so far as all of that, but your compliments are much appreciated. Champion I may be, but a trainer's work is never done. Nor that of a coordinator, for that matter."

May pulled out her ribbon case, as if she wanted to ask Wallace to sign it, then fumbled with it and looked away, thinking better of the idea. Wallace smiled again.

"And where are you three headed next, may I ask?" he asked. "Off to continue your journey as a coordinator, May?"

"Um, well...I'm not really sure, actually."

"You're not sure?" Wallace looked intrigued. "Of what?"

May still looked a bit nervous, and had to gather her thoughts for a moment before answering.

"Well, sir, the thing is...Originally I wanted to go to Izabe Island for the contest there, so I could try to earn another ribbon to count towards the Grand Festival. But the Izabe contest has been cancelled. And anyway...It seems like the whole season is over with now, because of all of the disasters that happened from Kyogre and Groudon. Even if there are still a few contests here and there...Well, probably the Grand Festival's going to be cancelled too. Isn't it?"

Wallace seemed to weigh his words before replying.

"Naturally, of course, it's a big decision," said Wallace, "and the Contest Committee might say that, in the end. But, just between you and me...I wouldn't write off the Grand Festival entirely."

"You think it'll still happen?"

"It's very possible. Now, I doubt that they'll have it in Slateport City like usual, given all of the damage...But, knowing what I know, I would be very surprised if they canceled it altogether, if it can be rescheduled and moved instead. And it can." He smiled gently at May. "So, I wouldn't give up on your goal just yet."

May looked from Wallace to her ribbon case, running her gloved thumb along the latch and biting her lip.

"What's wrong, May? You seem worried about something."

May stared hard at her ribbon case, then gazed up at Wallace.

"I am," she admitted. "But I'm not sure whether it's worth worrying about, if that makes sense."

"What's on your mind?"

May hesitated, then took a deep breath and clutched the case tightly in both hands.

"Well, to be honest, sir...It feels like with all of these horrible things that have happened, and so much going on, all the people who need help now...It seems silly to still care about entering Pokémon contests at a time like this. But...I can't help it. I keep thinking about all of the training my Pokémon and I have done, how hard we've been working for so long, and what it would be for all of us to just completely give up now..." She paused. "Well, I guess what I mean is: I still want to become a top coordinator. But maybe it's too selfish to keep trying to make it to the Grand Festival right now. What do you think?"

Again Wallace smiled at her.

"I think," he said, "that the world would be a poorer place if tragedy made all young people give up on their dreams."

His gaze turned from May to the city—his city—and his eyes swept over the whole of it, first the harbor and then the buildings rising up the side of the crater. With one look he seemed to take it all in, every broken window and gutted house and stray pile of mangled, twisted debris—and Hoenn's countless other wounds, too, that could not be seen here: tall buildings in Mossdeep with waterlines stained near their roofs, and the cracked streets of Lilycove City, and the numberless people and Pokémon who had lost everything but their lives.

"Hoenn will be marked by this forever," Wallace said at last. "We will bury and mourn and remember. But it is not the end of our way of life. Life goes on—even the parts of life that seem trivial, like Pokémon contests. And sometimes, it's those trivial things that give people something to hold on to and feel happy about the most, when all of the other things—the big things—seem ruined." He turned back to May, Brock, and Max. "I can't tell any of you what to do with yourself now; that's a decision only you can make. But May...If you do decide to keep on with your training, I very much look forward to watching you and your Pokémon at the Grand Festival someday."

And he bowed to them all, making May blush.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"Ash. Brendan." Juan looked between them, plucking the tip of his mustache as he studied the two young trainers. "I'm glad we caught you before you left. I wanted to express my gratitude to you both on the assistance you gave to us the other night, during the battle between Kyogre and Groudon. Thanks to your help, Sootopolis...No, all of Hoenn was saved. On behalf of the people, I thank you. This is a gift from me. Please accept it."

He extended his hand, and the two boys saw in his palm a pair of small, shining triangles, each fashioned out of the likeness of three raindrops. Brendan's eyes lit up, and he extended a hand, then stopped himself; Ash looked from him to Juan.

"What are these?" asked Ash.

"This is the Rain Badge." Juan proffered them. "And I would offer this to any trainer, young or old, who displayed even a fraction of the courage that you both showed in the face of that terrible situation. Please, take it. You and your Pokémon have displayed more than the requisite skill and spirit."

"Thanks, but I'll pass."

Brendan gave Ash a swift look; Juan, too, looked mildly surprised. He did not withdraw his hand; the polished badges shone in the bright sun.

"Are you certain? I'm not being facetious, you know."

"No, I mean it," said Ash. "That's really nice of you to offer, but to be honest, if I got a badge every time I did something crazy, I'd be a Pokémon Master by now." He smiled apologetically and adjusted his cap. "I'm always getting into trouble and stuff. So, if it's okay with you...I'd rather come back and have a real Gym battle someday, when everything's back to normal. It wouldn't be fair to my Pokémon to just take a badge for free, even though I've done that before. I want us to earn them all together, by facing Gym leaders head-on, as a team—like we trained for."

"Pika_chu!" _Pikachu confirmed, perched on Ash's shoulder.

Juan raised an eyebrow, then chuckled.

"Well, yours must be an exciting life. Very well, I understand. I look forward to one day accepting your challenge. But you mustn't think I'll deal lightly with you when the time comes."

"I wouldn't want you to."

Ash grinned. Brendan gazed longingly at the Rain Badges in Juan's hand, but shook his head.

"Hey—I can't take one if he doesn't," he admitted, glancing at Ash. "And anyway, Ash is right. Even if this _is_ the last badge I need to enter the Hoenn League..."

He gave the Rain Badges another covetous look, but snapped himself out of it.

"Besides," he added, as if to console himself, "they're gonna cancel this season's tournament anyway. Right?"

"Are they?" Juan answered, sounding intrigued. "That is news to me."

Brendan looked surprised, and tugged hard on his cap, as if to hide his embarrassment.

"Well, I mean…They _probably _will," he said. "It's not like they can have it with all of this other stuff going on, y'know?"

"So one would assume," said Juan, "but the League is a stubborn creature. I wouldn't be sure of things just yet."

Ash and Brendan looked at each other. Juan, smiling, returned the Rain Badges to a pocket of his blue coat.

"Well, if I must wait for both of your challenges, then so be it," he said. "One cannot have everything, I suppose."

Brendan's Swampert snorted, as if agreeing, and Juan rubbed one of the fins on its head. As he did, Ash regarded Brendan with a sudden look of excitement.

"Hey, Brendan...If you're gonna enter the next Hoenn League too, then I guess that makes us rivals from now on. Right?"

"Rivals?"

Brendan turned this thought over.

"I've never had a rival before," he admitted. "Well, sorta...There's this one kid named Wally...but I never run into him." He scratched his nose and grinned at Ash. "Rivals, huh? That sounds kinda fun."

They sized each other up, each suddenly aware of the other as a potential threat to their dream of winning the Hoenn League. Pikachu and Swampert nodded at each other.

"Well—I guess I'll see you at the tournament, then, huh?" Brendan said. "Whenever they decide to hold it, I mean. But I'm gonna win it, so don't feel bad when I knock you out in the finals. Okay? It's nothing personal."

"We'll see about that," said Ash, grinning.

"Pi-_ka-_chu!"

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"Well, it does make sense," Brock was saying. "The Grand Festival's a really big deal, and not just for coordinators. Probably they want to give people something to look forward to after all of this. But you know," he added, "it'll be really tough getting those last two ribbons. A lot of towns probably aren't going to run any more contests this season, since there's so much else going on now—which means more competition at the few contests that are left."

"Well, that just means my Pokémon and I will have to work extra hard."

Brendan and Ash rejoined the others as Brock said, "Either way, there's nothing we can do about it right now. We'll just have to wait until the Contest Committee makes an announcement, and then we'll know for sure. The only thing to do now is head out." He adjusted his backpack on his shoulders. "And who knows? We might run into somebody we know on the way."

"Yeah, May," said Max, "maybe you'll run into Drew again."

"Who's Drew?" Brendan asked, sounding oddly suspicious. May did not hear him, and he coughed to clear his throat. "Hey, uh—May?"

May looked over at him. "Yeah, Brendan? What is it?"

"Well, uh...Before you guys go, I was wondering...Do you have an e-mail address or anything? I mean, y'know, I want to keep in touch with all of you guys, and since your PokéNav got busted in Mossdeep..."

"Oh, yeah!" May brightened. "Mom writes me and Max a lot. I only ever check it when we're staying at a Center, but still..."

She dug a scrap of paper out of her pocket and jotted her e-mail down; Brendan made a show of putting it away nonchalantly.

"Tell your dad we all said hi when you get home," said May. "It was nice to meet you, even if it wasn't—you know, the best time. I hope we run into each other again."

Brendan might have said something similar, but it was hard to tell, as he coughed into his fist as he spoke. May seemed to take it well, though, and gave a final jaunty goodbye before making for the ferry with Brock and Max. Max paused, then turned to face Brendan again.

"I'm on to you," he warned. "Don't think I haven't noticed just 'cuz May hasn't."

Brendan folded his hands behind his head.

"Lighten up, Max. Sheesh. I just wanna keep in touch, is that so wrong?"

Max adjusted his glasses. "A likely story."

Brendan rolled his eyes, then said, "Yeah, well, good to see you guys. Take care of yourselves, got it?"

"You too."

They nodded to each other before turning away, Max heading for the ferry with the others while Brendan and Swampert started up the harbor, Brendan checking the ticket in his pocket for the ferry number he'd been assigned. He seemed distracted as they strolled, and kept his hands folded behind his head, dodging the crowd.

"What's Max so hung up about?" he muttered to himself. "I mean...she's not even _that_ cute. Not really."

Swampert made a throaty, gurgling sound, grinning; Brendan scowled at it.

"Very funny, smart mouth."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

When May, Brock, and Max reached the upper deck of the ferry, the first thing they encountered (much to their surprise) was a tall young man who had beelined for them as soon as they boarded; he had no trouble clearing a way through the crowd, since everyone edged out of the path of the Cacturne following right behind him. Brock scooted away from its spines when it stopped just inches away from him.

"Well hel-_lo _there!"

The young man loomed over the three of them, his attention on May; his Cacturne leered over his shoulder. May gulped.

"Um…hello? Have we met?"

"Oh, don't be so coy!" The young man grinned down at her. "I can't believe you actually know Wallace! I'm so unbelievably jealous! Words just cannot even _say."_

"What? Oh, no, I don't really know him that well..."

"Don't play games with me, honey, I saw you chatting him up out there on shore. You're practically bosom buddies, aren't you?"

"Bosom buddies? I—no, it's not like that. He was just telling me a few things about the Grand Festival, that's all."

"Wait—so you're a coordinator too?" The young man assessed May with a keen eye, his excitement building. "And you're getting personal tips on your Grand Festival performance strategy from the one and only super-elite top coordinator _Wallace?"_

"Not exa—"

"Oooh, girl, we have _got _to have a talk!"

And he hauled a flustered-looking May away by one arm, jabbering merrily, May's attempts to explain going unheeded; his Cacturne followed them. Brock and Max exchanged bewildered looks.

"Wow," was Brock's comment. "May's made a new coordinator friend already and we haven't even left the dock."

Max sighed and shook his head, then stomped away after May. Brock made as if to follow, then paused to call over the side of the ferry down at the shore.

"Hey Ash, you'd better hurry up!"

Ash was standing just beside the gangplank, taking in Sootopolis City one last time, Pikachu perched on his shoulder and clinging to his hat for support. When he heard Brock's voice, he turned to face the ferry, then reached up and scratched behind Pikachu's ears with a gloved hand.

"How about it, Pikachu? You ready to head out?"

"Pipikachu!"

"We'll get those last two badges," Ash said. "And we'll meet up with Brendan in the Hoenn League someday—I know it."

One of the crewmen on the lower deck gave the final call for departure, which made Ash finally hurry aboard; no sooner had he reached the deck than a Machop pulled the gangplank up, and a man on shore began untying the boat from its moorings. Instead of fighting his way through the press of people towards his friends in the stern, Ash stayed where he was, gripping the metal railing and scanning the busy harbor for Brendan's distinctive hat. He spotted it already a good distance away, and watched Brendan and Swampert disappear into the crowd as they searched for the ferry that would take them west later on.

"Hey...Pikachu?"

"Pi?"

"You and me…" Ash's gaze flickered over the damaged city. "No matter how much bad stuff happens, we're always gonna be together. Right?"

_"Pi!"_

Ash smiled and rubbed Pikachu's head; it nuzzled his cheek in return. As the boat's engine spluttered to life, Ash gave Sootopolis one final look before squeezing his way past the other passengers towards his friends, who were gathered on the other end of the deck. They had all survived another extraordinary adventure. There were many more to come.


	34. Chapter 34

It was always foggy atop Mt. Pyre. No matter the weather or season, a chill mist shrouded the summit, seeping between the crumbling headstones that covered the mountainside like chipped scales. Some people said the fog was really the collected spirits of the dead, keeping watch over the holy peak; others, that a spell had been placed on the mountaintop long ago, the fog a protective blanket to soothe the souls who slept beneath it.

For all these myths and rumors, the top of Mt. Pyre was uninspiring. There was nothing there, usually—just a flat circle of bare earth, without even any grass or graves to enliven it. Today, however, a small wooden casket had been set on the ground in the exact center of the mountaintop, weathered and fragile, its lid lying beside it. It looked ancient, as though some traveler in ages past had left it for a minute and never returned, and it had sat there, undisturbed, all the generations since.

Two men were kneeling in front of the casket. Each had in his lap something round wrapped in dark cloth, and though their faces showed much thought, neither of them spoke. They looked like pilgrims, come to leave offerings at the makeshift shrine of a forgotten god, fulfilling some ritual too old to bear the need for words. The fog around them pressed palpably on every side, making small and eerie any noise from the rest of the world that drifted all the way to the peak, and giving them only the vaguest hint as to where the sun stood. If not for the earth beneath them both, and the light wind stirring their hair and clothes, they could have easily believed themselves elsewhere: a small white room without walls or doors or ceiling, another plane of existence.

"You ready?"

A nod.

The two men paused, and then, at the same moment, both reached forward and gently set the Red and Blue Orbs into the casket. There was a muffled _clink _as the cloth-wrapped Orbs touched one another before settling into the grooves carved into the bottom.

Archie rested his fists on his knees. Maxie carefully set the cracked wooden lid onto the chest; it fitted snugly. Then he, too, sat in silence, gazing at the intricate carvings on the lid: ribbons of water and tongues of flame, intertwined so tightly that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

For a time, they neither moved nor spoke. This too was part of the ritual, this last silence, understanding the offering that had been made. Not a gift bestowed in kindness, nor a sacrifice made in desperation, nor even a grudging relinquishing of treasure by thieves who had been caught, but something willing and humble: children with bowed heads returning a sharp, shiny weapon that they had plucked from over the mantle, thinking it a marvelous toy. At last, and in silence, they both rose to their feet.

Maxie dusted off the knees of his pants; Archie did not bother. Together they gazed into the white fog beyond the edge of the clearing, knowing that the old couple who kept watch over Mt. Pyre was waiting to take the chest back to the shrine in the heart of the mountain. Archie ran a hand through his hair.

"They'll be safe back where they came from," he said. In the utter stillness his voice sounded loud, though he spoke quietly. "Well, unless another couple of geniuses like us come around someday, I guess."

"One can only hope."

The two men looked at each other without hate. Then they turned and headed for the steep stone steps that led down the mountain, descending side-by-side. Neither of them glanced back.

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Halfway down the mountainside, just below where the fog thinned to nothing, a group of people had assembled on a flat grassy patch relatively free of graves. Though none of them were dressed the part, there was an almost military bearing to the way they had arranged themselves into several neat rows. The crowd was silent, gazing intently at the veil of fog further up the mountain, and at last two men appeared from the mist. Everyone stirred.

Archie and Maxie stopped when the ground leveled off, nodding at one another before stepping forward. Shoulder-to-shoulder, they stood facing what was left of their teams. Aqua and Magma were not divided down the middle; the rows of people were a mix of both teams, and without their uniforms they were indistinguishable from one another. In the back stood Matt, Courtney, Shelly, and Tabitha, in that order; they, at least, wore their uniforms, or whatever pieces of them they had left. Courtney was chewing a wad of gum, and blew a huge pink bubble that covered half her face. When it popped loudly, Tabitha gave her a reproachful look from across Shelly's shoulders; Courtney ignored him.

"It is done," said Maxie.

The few whispering people fell still. Maxie raised a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat.

"I hereby formally disband Team Magma, and absolve its members of all the duties and responsibilities associated therewith. Anyone who may act in the name of Team Magma from this day forward will do so unofficially, and in violation of the spirit of the organization. But I thank you all for your loyalty and perseverance. I regret that I have nothing with which to reward you today except my gratitude."

Archie folded his arms, jerking his head at Maxie.

"What he said." He paused, then added, "Everybody go home."

There was a beat of oppressive silence. Courtney broke it with a loud _pop, _and someone in the middle of the crowd stifled a nervous laugh. Everyone relaxed. The rows of people shifted, then melted; no one went far, but everyone moved, scattering themselves over the grass in twos and threes. After a minute, conversations started up, chasing away the deathly stillness on the empty, grave-strewn mountainside.

Matt exhaled and fiddled with his collar. He had scrounged up a shirt for the occasion, but it did not fit him, and he pulled at the tight fabric with a grimace. Courtney popped another bubble of gum.

"Guess this is finally it," Matt said. He looked to her. "Where you headed now?"

Courtney rolled the wad of gum around in her mouth. Apparently it had lost its flavor, because she spat it onto the grass and dug in her pocket for another piece.

"No idea. But I guess I gotta get a real job now. Damn." She sounded annoyed. "What about you?"

Matt shrugged. "I dunno...Maybe I'll just go back to Lilycove. Figure they need mechanics out there, with all the reconstruction. If not, though...We'll see."

Courtney saluted when Maxie approached, but it was a reflexive, almost joking act. She grinned at him.

"Hey, boss. Nice speech. Short and sweet."

"Yes, well...It's not as if there's much to say at this point, is there?" Maxie shook his head. "But thank you for coming out today, Courtney. I realize you would have preferred to...mm, make a clean getaway, before now."

"Hey, I wanted to come." Another grin. "Been doing this Magma gig longer than anybody but you, I oughta at least hear the last word on it." She looked over Maxie's shoulder. "Having fun over there, Tab?"

Tabitha was on crutches. He growled something in Courtney's direction as he hobbled over, his bandaged leg hovering above the uneven ground. Behind him, his Mightyena nudged him in the rear when his balance faltered; he tried to look dignified anyway. Courtney laughed once he approached, smacking her gum more loudly than usual.

"You're a real sight," she said. "Wish I could get a picture."

"Give it a rest, Courtney."

"Eh, come on, Tab. I'm just screwing with you."

She gave him a playful jab on the shoulder that would have knocked him over had Maxie and Mightyena not steadied him. Tabitha spluttered, but Courtney just grinned.

"Save it, Tab." To Maxie, she added, "So, you know where you're headed next, boss?"

"Not yet, no. We still haven't decided."

"Well, you'd better hurry it up. We've already had two weeks' grace from the cops; I wouldn't hold out for more. Better split soon. Get outta Hoenn, if you can."

"Is that what you'll be doing?"

Courtney just shrugged. Maxie managed half a smile.

"Thank you for everything, Courtney. I hope to see you again someday."

"Yeah, yeah." She popped her gum. "Good luck out there, boss. You too, Tab."

Tabitha muttered some well-wishes, then said, more clearly, "Don't get into any trouble." Courtney snorted.

"Tab, I've gotten into enough trouble lately to last me till I'm old and saggy. Don't lose any sleep over me."

"Never have," Tabitha assured her. She snorted again.

"Well...You two keep your heads down from now on. I don't wanna see either of your mugshots on the news, all right?"

Maxie smiled. "We'll do our best."

Across the clearing, Archie, Matt, and Shelly stood in a circle, Matt still fiddling with his coat collar as he talked.

"Not a lot to go on," he admitted, "but it's a good place to start. Figure I can get set up that way and then work out what I wanna do in the long run."

"Sounds like a plan," said Archie approvingly. "You'll figure something out. Tech guy like you, you'll do all right, no sweat."

"Thanks, boss." Matt scratched behind his ear, then said, "Where are you both headed?"

Archie and Shelly looked at each other. Shelly tossed her hair; Archie shrugged.

"Haven't thought that far ahead," Archie said. "Well, I've thought about it, but..." He shrugged again. "Anyway, if you wind up staying in Lilycove, we'll look you up sometime. Dunno how, but—hell."

They clasped hands, and then Matt and Shelly exchanged nods. The three of them shared a look of mutual understanding; this could easily be the last time in their lives that they would gather together like this. There would be no more discussions or meetings or making of plans, no more late nights up scheming and long days spent working; if they ever met again it would be only on fate's whim. None of them was quite sure how to comment on this, and so finally Matt cleared his throat and said, "Well, uh...I guess this is it, boss. See you around."

"You too, Matt. Thanks for everything."

Matt shrugged.

"Don't like having to run off," he admitted, "but Dylan's buddy's giving me and some other guys a ride. Gotta leave now if we wanna get there in time."

"Good luck, Matt," Shelly told him. "With whatever you end up doing next."

"You guys too. Stay outta trouble." Matt paused, considering his audience, then amended, "Or at least, try not to get caught."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

"Want a smoke?" Craig offered.

"Nah." Courtney grimaced at the cigarette, then jerked a thumb at the gum she was chewing. "Trying to quit. Cigs are expensive."

Craig shrugged and lit up. Courtney watched longingly as he took a drag, then stuffed another couple of pieces of gum into her mouth, turning away. Craig, Sierra, Stanley, and Brooke were left standing in a broken circle that Stanley scooted over to close. When Craig exhaled smoke from his nose, his Houndoom did the same.

No one seemed to want to break the silence, and so it lasted several minutes, though it was hard to tell time there on the side of the mountain. The fog above, the unseasonably cool wind around, and the ground below littered with tombstones combined to suppress the desire for conversation; it felt like being inside a funeral home, though they stood in the open air beneath the sun. Sierra fidgeted. Her Mightyena laid down on the grass and rested its head on its front paws.

"So...What do we do now?" she finally asked.

They all exchanged blank looks, as though they had each avoided thinking about such a huge and frightening question until this, the last possible moment. Only Craig seemed determined, though it was impossible to tell whether he was faking it or not. He studied the glowing tip of his cigarette before sticking it back in his mouth.

"I'm going back to Mossdeep," he said, taking another pull.

"How come?" asked Sierra. "And don't say your cousin, 'cause we all know you don't even—"

"I've fucking got a cousin," he said through a cloud of smoke, "and he said I can come crash with him anytime. Finally heard back from him last night."

The others looked jealous. Stanley's Golbat, hovering above them all, blew away the dense cigarette smoke, then alighted on Stanley's head; his neck bowed under its weight, but he didn't seem to mind. He reached up and petted its short fur. It chirruped, framing his face with its leathery wings.

"Who knows when they'll start running all the normal ferries again, though?" Stanley said. "I mean, you might be stuck around here for a while."

"We all will be," Brooke mused. Beside her, her Crawdaunt clacked its pincers.

Sierra started coiling a lock of her long hair around one finger, then gnawed on the split ends. She paused long enough to say, "Well...I guess we'll figure something out. It's not like we have a choice."

The four of them looked at each other; their Pokémon mimicked them. A sudden breeze stole the smoke from Craig's cigarette, hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

"We'll find some way to be okay," said Stanley at last. His Golbat chirped resolutely. "We're still a team."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Archie and Maxie talked. It was impossible to say what about, since they had moved opposite the scattered crowd and stood with their backs to it; no one had the nerve to approach them. But once in a while, Archie's rough laugh rang loud over the other conversations, and when the two men finally parted, neither one looked ill at ease. Maxie was approached at once by Tabitha; Archie made for Shelly, who met him halfway across the grassy clearing. When they reached each other, they both turned to watch Maxie and Tabitha recede.

"What were you two talking about?" Shelly asked Archie, who glanced at her and shrugged.

"Ehh, nothing much. This and that, I guess. Burying the hatchet."

He regarded Maxie and Tabitha with some interest.

"_Good riddance, you bastards!" _he called suddenly, shattering the hallowed silence. Tabitha stopped hobbling to glare over his shoulder; Archie laughed and flipped him off, grinning. Shelly rolled her eyes.

"Archie..."

"What?" Archie folded his arms, still grinning. "We won't have to see them ever again, right? That's worth making a fuss over in my book."

Shelly watched Maxie and Tabitha move toward the other side of the clearing.

"I'm not sure," she said. "I have a feeling we'll run into them again someday."

"Heh. I know what you mean. Feels like we'll never be that lucky, huh?"

But he said this without any malice, and was smiling when they both turned away to gaze instead at the vast, calm ocean to the east, shining under the high sun. In the distance, tiny blue figures churned the water; a pod of Wailord was passing by. They both watched it.

"What are you going to do now, Archie?"

Archie's mildly pleased expression sobered.

"I don't have anywhere to run off to," he admitted, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking unusually moody. "Mom's dead, uncle's dead, haven't talked to my cousins in years. Best thing now seems to be starting over somewhere." He frowned at the endless sea. "Maybe the Orange Islands or somewhere like that. Someplace real outta the way. And..."

He didn't finish.

"And what, Archie?"

Archie glanced at her, then exhaled through his nose.

"Shelly, I...Look, I don't have a lot going for me right now. I'm starting from scratch, so I don't have anything to offer you. But I'd really like it if you came with me, wherever I end up going. Or, if you're going somewhere, then..." He faltered, then sighed. "Ah, hell, I dunno. I just wanna keep being with you, that's all."

"For how long?"

"For as long as you'll let me." He shrugged. "Face it, Shelly, we've done a lot of crazy shit together already. So whatever happens next, I know we can handle it."

"Well, I can't argue with that."

Archie tried to put his arm around her, but hissed through gritted teeth, instead clutching with his other hand at the bandages wrapped tightly across his chest. Shelly looked concerned.

"Still hurt?"

"Yeah, a little bit."

"They said it would leave a scar."

"Yeah, well...I don't mind." Archie let go of the bandages and managed a strained smile. "I'll just tell people I got into a wrestling match with a Gyarados."

They exchanged looks; Shelly raised her eyebrow at him. Archie gave an apologetic sigh, which she seemed to accept, since she carefully pressed the side of her face against his injured arm before nodding towards the steps that led down the mountain. He brushed her hair out of her face, his fingers passing over the spot on her forehead where the cut she had received at Sky Pillar had almost healed. Then, together, they started walking.

"So...Where should we set up shop?" Archie asked—conversationally, as if this were an idle question.

"I don't know, Archie." Shelly frowned at the uneven ground as she walked. "But before we do anything else, I want to go to Pacifidlog Town."

"What's in Pacifidlog?"

"My parents."

Archie halted. Shelly noticed and halted too, looking over her shoulder at him.

"I want to know if they're all right, after all of this. Besides...I haven't seen them in a long time." She folded her arms across her stomach, looking pensive. "I think it's time to go back and say I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

Shelly shook her head. Archie watched her curiously, then wrapped his arm around her waist from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"You don't wanna tell me what happened?"

"Not right now, Archie. But I will soon, I promise."

"Okay." He nuzzled her thick hair. "But..."

"But what?"

"Do I have to wear a tie?"

"Why on earth would you wear a tie?"

"Well...If I'm gonna meet your parents..."

Shelly laughed.

"No, Archie, you don't." She reached up to brush her finger along his face. "But you do have to shave."

Archie was too horrorstruck to speak. Shelly's next laugh was louder, yet gentler than the first.

"I'm kidding, Archie."

"Good." He ran his knuckles against his bearded chin. "Shit, don't scare me like that."

Shelly kissed him, then tugged herself out of his grip, and they started walking again, soon reaching the stone staircase that led back down the mountain. It was too narrow for them to take side-by-side, and so Shelly went first, picking her way down the weathered steps; Archie followed. But they had not gone more than a dozen feet down before he spoke.

"Shelly, hold up."

Shelly turned. Archie had halted on the steps.

"I wanna give you something," he said. "Been holding onto this. Forgot I had it for a while, actually..."

He pulled something out of his pocket and held it out; whatever it was, it was so small that Shelly couldn't see it. She stepped up on the stairs just below him, but he kept his hand cupped around it until she extended her own. When he dropped the object into her palm, it flashed brilliantly in the watery sunlight that filtered to them through the fog above.

"It's not much," Archie admitted, "but if we sell it, it'll get us a few meals and some tickets. To Pacifidlog, and wherever we wanna go after that."

Shelly held up the heart scale, studying it. But for the shape, it could have been a thin flake of some rare gemstone.

"Thank you, Archie." She turned it over in her hand. "It's beautiful."

Archie shrugged, watching her examine the heart scale. She traced its outline with one finger, drawing a heart on her own palm, and then set it back in his open hand without any comment. This seemed to unnerve him.

"Shelly?"

"What is it, Archie?"

"Are we...Eh, what did you call it..." He paused, then remembered the word she had once used. "Are we a 'thing'?"

"What makes you think you still have to ask?"

He hesitated, then confessed.

"You don't need me the way I need you, Shelly," he said, almost accusingly. "You could get by without me."

"That's true, Archie. I could."

Shelly sighed and smiled. Then she reached out and closed Archie's fingers around the heart scale, holding his fist tightly in both of her hands, gazing up into his blue eyes.

"I would just be sad for a long time, that's all."

**•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•**

Tabitha could not stop himself from taking charge. He spent a good twenty minutes limping back and forth between what was left of the scattered grunts, speaking a few parting words to each of those who had been members of Team Magma. Though he was as curt and formal as ever, the overriding emotionality of the situation undermined him, and twice he nearly fell over on his crutches when a particularly heartbroken grunt hugged him goodbye. But that was to be expected. Those who had considered Team Magma or Team Aqua an exciting game, or one opportunity out of many, were long gone. The only people who had made the journey here to chilly Mt. Pyre were those to whom their team had meant everything, those who now had nowhere else to go, and nothing else to be. Tabitha did not berate them, not even the young woman who almost started crying. He understood.

Once Tabitha was certain he had spoken to everyone, he looked around for Maxie. At his side, Mightyena pointed its nose in the air, sniffing, and then trotted away; Tabitha knew it knew who he was looking for, and followed.

Maxie had separated himself from the crowd and was idling on the cliffside near a cluster of fragmented headstones, gazing out at the distant shore across the water. Tabitha navigated as best as he could over the rough ground; Maxie turned when he heard him stump over, and moved to him so that Tabitha would not have to hop over the headstones. Still, Tabitha wobbled a little. Mightyena steadied him from one side, and Maxie from the other, catching his shoulder.

"Thanks," Tabitha muttered. He scowled as he shifted his grip on his crutches. "I hate these things."

"It's only for a few weeks, Tabitha."

"I still hate them."

Maxie smiled.

"It's fortunate you didn't suffer any worse. A broken leg is a small price to pay for what we've been through, I should think."

"What about you?" He nodded to Maxie's side. "Still hurt to breathe?"

"Not as much today." Maxie gingerly touched the bandages pressed beneath the right side of his coat, wincing when a flash of pain stung him.

"Don't touch it," Tabitha said worriedly. Maxie shook his head and sighed, then turned back to face the mainland; Tabitha stood beside him, balanced precariously on the uneven ground. Maxie ran a hand through his sleek hair.

"Well, it's all over now, Tabitha," he said. "Over at long last. So strange..."

"What's strange?"

"Oh, I don't know. Everything, I suppose. The way it's all turned out...How Team Magma ended...I simply never would have predicted any of this."

"Me neither." Tabitha sounded pensive. "But that's all right. It feels weird now, but I'll get used to it."

He said this with determination, as though _get used to it _were another mission for him to complete. It made Maxie smile.

"What am I going to do without you, Tabitha?"

"I'd rather not find out, sir."

Maxie sighed gently. "Tabitha, please don't call me 'sir'."

"Sorry," Tabitha grunted, adjusting his crutches. "Habit."

For a minute, both men stood gazing off into the distance, watching the sunlight dance across the water between Mt. Pyre and the coast; beside Tabitha, Mightyena stood proudly, like a sentinel. Tabitha broke the silence.

"What happens now, Maxie?"

"I'm not certain. I still have some money tied up outside of Hoenn, so I suppose we could go set ourselves up anywhere we choose. Perhaps somewhere in Kanto..." He looked to Tabitha. "Do you have anywhere you'd like to go?"

Tabitha frowned, considering.

"I thought about going to see my family," he admitted. "It's been a long time. I don't miss 'em, I just wonder what they're up to, sometimes. Like my kid sister...I sort of wonder how she turned out." He shrugged this thought off. "But it doesn't matter. I want to start over, not go backwards." A pause. "What about you? Do you have any relatives?"

"None living, no. Well, I believe I have some distant cousins, but no immediate family."

Tabitha watched a handful of Wingull dart past them below, skimming the craggy side of the mountain, looking for their nests. "So...what's out in Kanto?"

"A number of things. Mountains...volcanoes..."

"Volcanoes..." Tabitha paused. "That sounds nice."

But there was a hesitation in his voice that made Maxie glance to him.

Tabitha read his look, then admitted, "It's just...I've never left Hoenn before. It'll be a little strange. Like going into exile, almost."

They exchanged looks. Maxie smiled wanly.

"Well...That is what we're doing, in a sense. But if it's any consolation, we'll always have a piece of Hoenn with us, wherever we end up."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you recall that little box that was left for me in the hospital, just before we left?"

"Yeah..."

Maxie pulled something out of his pocket, which shone hard and pale, like a chunk of crystal. Tabitha's brow furrowed.

"What is that?"

"I'm not entirely certain, actually." Maxie turned the object over a few times in his hand, examining it from several angles. "It might be an apology...or perhaps a peace offering. I don't know which."

He handed it to Tabitha, who frowned, inspecting it. It was a rock, but an oddly translucent, beautiful one. The golden surface of it caught the sunlight, making the red interior flash like a flame. Around it was tied a paper tag, which Tabitha held close to read.

_Specimen: Fire Stone_

_Locality: Granite Cave, Dewford Island, Hoenn_

_Size: 4.10 x 1.30 x 0.47 in._

_Collected by: S.S._

"SS..." Tabitha looked to Maxie. "Is this from..."

"I believe so."

Tabitha paused, then handed the stone back to Maxie, who gave it another long look before pocketing it.

"I guess that's something," Tabitha admitted. He hopped a step closer on his crutches; Maxie reached out to steady him, then took one of Tabitha's crutches so that Tabitha could stand close, leaning on Maxie for support, one arm around him. The wind was cool on their faces.

Tabitha kissed Maxie's neck as best as he could, given the obstacle that Maxie's coat collar presented. Maxie sighed, smiled, and reached over to clasp Tabitha's free hand on his waist, entwining their fingers; Tabitha nudged the side of his head protectively.

"Tabitha?"

"Hm?"

"Who are we now? What do we go become, after all of this?"

"I don't know, Maxie." He kissed his neck again. "But we'll figure it out together."

Mightyena growled its agreement, its tail swishing. With his free hand, Maxie scratched it behind the ears; it growled again happily.

Together they stood on the mountainside, looking out over the sparkling water, watching the wide and beautiful world that they miraculously had not destroyed. So long did they linger that the clearing behind them began to empty as people headed back down the mountain; eventually Maxie, Tabitha, and Mightyena were the only living things left there, the fog that blanketed the upper slopes hanging above them and sometimes sending tendrils creeping down the cliffs. They did not speak. Only the wind and the cries of Wingull swooping below them gave life to the quiet grassy slopes of Mt. Pyre.

At last, Maxie broke the silence with a determined sigh.

"Well," he said, as if trying to pull himself out of a reverie, "I suppose we'd best go, Tabitha. It would be unwise to loiter here—or anywhere else, for that matter. Not for a long while yet."

"Are you worried about the police?"

"Yes. I have a feeling our friend Lance has been leaning on them a bit, but it would still behoove us to leave as soon as possible. We ought to get out of the immediate area, at least."

Tabitha nodded, then said to Mightyena, "All right, buddy, let's go. There's nothing else we can do here."

Mightyena growled and turned away, its tail wagging, leading the way towards the ancient stairs cut into the face of the mountain. Tabitha received his crutch from Maxie, and both of them followed Mightyena—though slowly, Tabitha trying to make sure of his footing on the rough ground. When they reached the top of the steps, they halted. Tabitha surveyed the situation, then adjusted his crutches.

"I should go first this time, Maxie," he said. "Don't wanna fall down and take you with me."

"You won't," Maxie assured him, but Tabitha had already turned and begun making his way down the first of the narrow stairs that led to the foot of the low mountain, inspecting each weathered step carefully before setting his crutches down on it. Mightyena followed beside him, its nose to the stone, watching Tabitha's crutches to ensure he did not slip.

"Tabitha?"

Tabitha paused. Both he and Mightyena turned to look back up at Maxie, still lingering at the top of the stairs. Maxie stuck his hands in the pockets of his battered coat, the wind stirring his red hair.

"Tabitha—are you quite certain you wouldn't like to pay your relatives a visit first? I don't want to keep you away, if you'd like to go home to Slateport."

"No, it's fine." He shrugged. "Besides, those aren't the same."

"What do you mean?"

"It's just my family out in Slateport. Home is wherever you are."

He shrugged again, as though this fact was not terribly interesting, and returned his attention to the more pressing issue of getting down the mountain. Maxie remained still, silhouetted at the top of the stairs as Tabitha and Mightyena made their way down Mt. Pyre, Tabitha's crutches clunking dully against the stone.

Perhaps they would fall apart in a few years, crumbling under the weight of cold silences and bitter arguments. That was how these things always seemed to turn out, for him. But as Maxie watched Tabitha hobble patiently down the steps, he let himself believe that he had found, without looking for it, something as strong as the foundations of the earth. It would last for today, and tomorrow, and all the days of his life that followed: through need and plenty, sickness and health, hell and high water.


End file.
